Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate and I congratulate Deputy Hayes on his initiative. I should like to address the section of the debate noting that a reported 23 school-going children died by suicide in the last school year. That is tragic and we have repeatedly raised the issue of the difficult area of youth suicide. Ireland has the fifth highest level in Europe of youth suicide in the age group 15 to 24 years. Those at a higher level are Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and Latvia. Ireland has the highest level of suicide in western Europe and the Government continues to ignore that fact. It will not put in the resources to give adequate support to the National Office for Suicide Prevention to put prevention programmes in place for all ages, particularly among the youth and children. Children include persons up to the age of 18.

We know very little about the one in every seven young men who die by suicide. Anecdotally, we know some of them. Certainly, if we have adolescent or young adult children, we will know some of them because they will have been among their friends and colleagues. Most young people nowadays know of someone who has taken his or her life, whether a school colleague, somebody from the parish, a relation or whatever. Most young persons tend to know someone who has taken his or her life. Children as young as seven know about suicide and discuss it among themselves in their own way. Little systematic study, however, has been carried out in respect of those young people and no published psychological autopsy studies have been done in Ireland. We do not study what is happening or why. The resources are not being put into this area by the State.

A psychological autopsy study is an in-depth interview with the people closest to the young person who has died by suicide and attempts to clarify those issues which, in the final months of his or her life, may have contributed to the suicide. Such studies have been carried out with this age group in the United Kingdom and the United States and detailed references are available. I cannot say that these studies relate specifically to the Irish situation, but they can inform us. Young people live within families, communities and social networks and factors impact on young people at each of these levels, just as they impact on the systems that surround them. Being male is one of the factors associated with taking one's life. Males tend to use "dangerous" methods, from which there is no coming back, to take their lives. I refer to hanging, for example. Young people from the lower socio-economic groups are over-represented in studies in the United Kingdom, but not so in the United States. However, we do not know what is happening in Ireland.

I am pleased the Minister of State, Deputy Devins, is present, as I know of his interest in this area. I ask the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, to ensure the Cabinet supports him with the resources necessary to do what I believe he wants to do. His predecessor, Tim O'Malley, did not receive the necessary resources, although his heart was in the right place.

See this speech in context