Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. This question is in response to the debate we had in late October. In that debate, the Minister of State said that 11,000 young people cause themselves deliberate self-harm every year and that Ireland has the fifth highest suicide rate in the EU for 15 to 24 year olds. The rate is even higher for men in their 20s and 30s, with men under 35 accounting for approximately 40% of suicides. I welcome the fact that the funding was given to groups, but there were 125 applications for funding.

Does the Minister of State accept that more funding is needed in this area? How important is this issue? We had cross-party support on it. Does he accept that we are doing enough and that the figures I read out are frightening? He stated that funding was a matter for the Government, but is the role of community involvement not as important?

There is a voluntary group in my own area called Teenline, which covers all of Ireland. It was set up in July and it received 1,000 phone calls between then and October, covering everything from suicidal feelings to attempted suicide, relationship bereavement, loneliness, violent assault, sexual assault and so on. The difficulty is that this is just one group and it has received no funding. The group operates on Friday and Saturday for a couple of hours. I have spoken to its volunteers and they told me that they receive no funding whatsoever. The group did not apply for funding as it was established in 2003 but only registered in 2005 and it did not wish to operate out of somebody's house. It is one of those groups that has fallen through the gaps. The group has no register, so if somebody rings in from Kerry, the group cannot refer the person to any service in that county.

This group is a first for Ireland and there is no training provided, so it must buy in services from abroad. I am aware that the lead Department is the Department of Health and Children, but this is a community initiative so I want the Minister of State with responsibility for community affairs to take this on board. Suicide is a growing problem and the community response can help. Can the Minister of State look at the possibility of helping these groups in the future?

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