Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I want to contribute to this debate because of the lack of information and awareness regarding the level of suicide and its impact on those who are sadly bereaved as a result. I, too, pay tribute to Deputy Neville, who, within the Oireachtas, has been to the forefront in trying to raise awareness of the problem. We have all been affected by suicide in some way or another. We know of victims and their bereaved families in our constituencies and we ask ourselves whether we could have done anything before they took their lives. As Deputy Keaveney stated, there are deaths in suspicious circumstances, such as inexplicable car crashes, on foot of which people ask whether the victim was unhappy or committed suicide. We ask ourselves what can be done about the problem.

It would come as a great shock to the vast majority to learn that more people are killed by suicide than in road accidents. Most people take the view that road accidents account for many more deaths than other tragedies. It puts the issue in context to learn that, over the past year, there were 11,000 admissions of individuals engaging in suicidal behaviour to our accident and emergency wards. These figures must be publicised because we all know the Minister of State will not receive the budgetary allocation set out in the recommendations unless there is greater political awareness among citizens and politicians, irrespective of the party to which they belong.

It does not come as a surprise to some people that our recent economic success is one of the reasons for the increase in social alienation. However, it strikes those who thought money would solve all our woes as something of a contradiction. They do not understand why we are encountering new problems which are associated with a sense of alienation, for reasons which the report outlines in some detail, at a time when we are so wealthy, having been so poor.

I strongly suggest that the recommendations in the report, particularly those which involve a relatively small cost, should be implemented as soon as possible. I am most concerned about the extent to which counselling is made available to the survivors of a suicide. I refer to people who have to carry a sense of guilt, loss and hurt for the rest of their lives. An inexplicable burden is placed on such people in a manner that absolutely defies their attempts to understand it. They might have a sense of anger towards the person who took his or her own life. At the same time, they might have some sympathy or empathy with the fact that he or she felt the need to do so. They might also have a sense of guilt for not having been able to see it in advance. Such conflicting and difficult sets of emotions can affect the manner in which people interact with other members of the family, the people with whom they work and other members of society.

The Department of Health and Children should be concerned with health rather than with sickness. If we want to promote health, we should promote all aspects of health, including mental health. As Deputy Keaveney has just said, mental health problems will rise to the fore in our society as we increasingly solve physical illnesses with drugs, better treatment and better diagnosis. We should meet the cost of this problem in respect of the totality of human relationships. I refer not only to its cost in terms of economic productivity or personal happiness, but also to the social cost of people having to carry the burden of guilt, as they see it, and the dysfunctionality that flows from that. Many of the projects proposed in the recommendations in the joint committee's report would cost a relatively modest amount of money.

I am concerned about the phenomenon of suicide clusters, or copycat suicides. I do not know whether we have done much research in this area. I am not a specialist in the area at all. It seems to me, from reading the newspapers, that some inexplicable high-profile teenage deaths, particularly of young females, have been followed some time later by copycat events. We need more research about the factors which lead to such events so that people working in the education sector, youth counsellors, youth workers and parents can start to read the alarm signs and understand the warning signs which begin to manifest themselves in the behaviour of students.

I am delighted that this report has been prepared. I compliment all those associated with it, including the chairman of the joint committee, on its production. I hope that as a result of this useful debate, which is highlighting the problem, the Minister of State will be able to indicate to the House at some future stage the steps which will be taken, based on the report's recommendations, to help us to deal with some of these problems. We will not solve this problem — we will not be able to eliminate suicide — but we can certainly reduce the incidence of suicide. I accept that Ireland's suicide rate is the 18th highest of the 25 EU member states, but there has been a fairly dramatic increase. We have to start to address the alarming profile of suicide among young people in general, and young males in particular. In my experience, such events have a knock-on effect — they can have a terrifying impact on people in communities.

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