Mr. Gerry Raleigh:

There are never enough resources. We have a budget of almost €9 million this year. I might bite my lip saying this but I believe we have sufficient resources for this year to do what we need to do.

In terms of the future, the platform is around the new national framework, which I believe should set out clear targets and points of delivery in terms of what we will do so that we can say to the man and woman in the street that, in terms of suicide prevention, these are the services we will deliver in their community, this is how we will resource them etc.? We have learned from Reach Out, which was mentioned. That was an excellent document of its day and we would embrace and bring forward many of the principles that underlie Reach Out but we must be much sharper in terms of what we intend to do, who will do it, who will resource it, what it will cost and how we will monitor its effectiveness. We see the timeframe for a new framework as being four to five years. Our expectation is that we will deliver it in November, although there is a lot of road to be travelled between now and November. We will have a much surer point of view in mid-summer on delivering it but that is our objective, and we are confident we will achieve it.

In terms of how we will arrive at that point, today is an important part of our discussion. We want to open the discussion as widely as possible without having the capacity - we are not sure of the value - of travelling across the country with a blank sheet, so to speak. We know enough in terms of where the priorities lie and how we approach that but we are trying to design an engagement process, which will involve the community and the sector, in terms of agreeing a new framework.

The issue of stigma was mentioned. On a personal level, I have read the See Change evaluation, which shows that we are making progress in terms of stigma but as a slightly beyond middle aged man, I know the challenges in terms of the discussion about mental health with my peers and while there has been some improvement in that regard, there is still an issue of stigma, particularly for men in terms of opening up about their emotional literacy and welfare. We have a further journey to go in that regard.

On whether there are too many agencies, I genuinely believe that the response to dealing with suicide requires everybody putting their shoulder to the wheel. Everybody in every community has a role to play. There are probably too many agencies. Agencies often arise locally in response to local tragedies but often have a very beneficial impact on the community in that they provide a forum for people to come together and support one another at a time when they are in distress. From a community point of view, therefore, they have their purpose.

Sometimes we see agencies drifting into areas of therapy provision, which would worry me. I heard Deputy Neville speaking on a radio programme last Sunday about the issue of regularising, overseeing and quality assuring counselling services. I strongly endorse that view, and we need to examine a platform for doing that, be it legislative or whatever is the best approach.

On whether there is an issue for men in the 15 to 21 age group raised by Senator Burke, I will defer to Dr. Justin Brophy to give a clinical perspective. Every death by suicide shakes us but most particularly the death of young people who have their lives in front of them. What brings a young person to that space? It is difficult to understand and very difficult to rationalise. As we mentioned earlier, generally, there are multiple issues involved. It is very seldom one causative factor and therefore we need to look behind that.