John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I thank the fellow members of the sub-committee of which I was Chairman. I thank Deputy Neville in particular and wish to recognise his expertise. I thank Deputies O'Connor and Connolly, Senators Browne and Glynn and Gina Long and in particular, Dr. Siobhán Barry.

I note the report presented to the Oireachtas and the remarks of Deputy McManus where she made the point that this is the first time this subject has been debated on the floor of the House. I hope that the next time it is debated here we will have met many of the targets and achieved much of what we have set out to do.

I speak as someone with an interest in the issue of suicide who hopes to see changes. The figure of in excess of 450 people taking their own lives must be regarded as a huge wake-up call to us all. The aim of the committee was to try to bring about change and to ensure there would be a reduction in numbers in the future. The committee's report was not designed to be publicity-seeking. The committee deliberated over a number of months and came to certain conclusions.

I do not wish to differ with the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, because I respect his position. However, I remain convinced that we must set targets. We will lose valuable time if we wait for more information to be collected. I say this not as a professional person because in the pecking order of responsibilities I presume I might come on the lowest rung.

I come to this debate as a country funeral undertaker. Over the years I have seen the hardship caused to families and communities by the act of suicide. I see despair and frustration, a lack of guidance and a wonderment of where we went wrong and where the system fails. I have been involved with six suicide funerals in my home area in the past six weeks. From speaking to the families I noted that a common thread in four of those funerals was that the person had been undergoing treatment, had been discharged from treatment but there had been no follow up to check how the patient was coping. There was no follow up with the family to find out how the patient was reacting to treatment or how he was dealing with going home for the weekend. Until the dreaded day came, there was no specific contact with the hospital authorities. In my view there should be targets in that area. The biggest gap is that there is very little follow up care. I do not wish to seem critical or to blame anybody.

The committee's report, unlike most reports, has stated that we should work towards achieving a 20% reduction in the rate of suicide by 2016. This can be achieved. I am relying on the professionals who came before our committee over a three to four month period. I would welcome the opportunity to read into the record of the House the 33 recommendations of the committee's report. I subscribe fully to a target figure and a price tag on those targets. We must recognise the significant problem and work on the recommendations. We do not have to accept all the recommendations but we should recognise the changes required.

We have a flourishing society with all the consumer goods we need but the one thing we cannot check is the reason people are taking their lives by suicide.

The committee's report concluded that suicide is largely a societal problem, not an illness in itself. As a consequence society needs to alter social policies to deal with the risk factors. We must decide how to change the societal background to ensure we achieve those reductions. Our report highlights that the close relationship of suicide and mental illness makes it imperative to make psychiatric services more accessible.

I do not wish to seem sentimental because, far from it, I am totally at ease with myself on this matter. My father suffered from alcoholism for a number of years. He was dry for 20 years before he died. During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, people were reluctant to seek help for alcohol-related illnesses because if one did not have the funding for a private hospital one went to the local mental hospital. People were reluctant to check into a mental hospital for fear of that stigma. We have moved from that era with the arrival of acute psychiatric units in hospitals. I welcome that development. I see the trend of people presenting at these units.

We must establish a pattern of treating people with suicidal tendencies. Levels of treatment must be raised to those in the alcohol treatment sector. This can be done and the report goes a long way towards suggesting this move.

One of the most important sections of the report highlights the disparity of funding in the mental health services. Services for adolescents have tended to be poorly developed. Adolescents with psychotic illnesses have a risk of between 10% and 15% of dying by suicide. That glaring fact is presented in the report. By homing in on that statistic and providing the necessary back-up support, we could reduce those figures greatly. The risk is greatest within the first five years after the onset of a psychotic illness. We need urgent programmes of early intervention for detection and treatment in the area of mental services. Only days ago, I heard of a person who arrived at an accident and emergency unit displaying suicidal tendencies. Our hospital systems are not geared to fast-tracking such a person through an accident and emergency unit. We must examine the problem of suicidal patients presenting at such units.

The recommendations in the report are well grounded and factually based. If we wait for further evidence we will not be dealing effectively with the issue. I too attended the conference on suicide held in County Leitrim. It was a two-day conference, going on until late in the evening and attended by more than 400 people. The common theme was that parents and families of those who take their lives by suicide feel absolutely helpless and deprived of guidance and direction. We must set down parameters for reducing suicide levels and fix targets. People must be held accountable or responsible for realising these targets.

We must go back to the old system where each county appointed a person responsible for bringing in measures to reduce the level of suicide in the county concerned. If this were done, I would have no difficulty accepting the recommendations of the task force report that the responsible person in each county should report to a suicide prevention officer at national level. Unless trends are established and patterns gauged and understood, we will not reduce suicide levels.

I would like to see a pilot programme or Government funded scheme to invite families bereaved by suicide to speak confidentially to professionals who would try to see if there is a set pattern leading to suicide. This would be a first step towards setting targets to reduce levels of suicide.

I fully subscribe to all the recommendations in the report. We must set targets and funding should be set aside in this regard. We have come to recognise the huge difficulty of deaths in road traffic accidents and we have set targets and provided budgets for this purpose. We must do the same for suicide. The public must be shown that suicide figures can be reduced. This matter has been tackled in Scotland. If the Scottish model can work, I am certain we can do the same in this country.

As chairman of the sub-committee which compiled the report, I made a commitment that it would not sit on a shelf and gather dust. This report is much too important. We want to reduce the levels of suicide and we hope to see that reduction very soon.

See this speech in context