Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)

At the outset, I want to congratulate you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, on your appointment and wish you well in that role. I also wish to congratulate the new Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who has responsibility for mental health services. As a Deputy representing County Limerick, it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my constituency and party colleague, Deputy Dan Neville, for his contribution to the debate on suicide prevention. Since his time in the Seanad, he has championed the cause of decriminalising suicide, thus destigmatising it and placing the debate on a national platform whereby people can speak openly about the subject, as we are now doing. Great credit is due to Deputy Neville for having done that.

I want to discuss the impact of suicide on families. There is a temptation to trivialise the issue by categorising people according to statistics, including how they died and the possible causes. In fact, however, we will never know the reasons that most suicide victims die because in many cases they do not leave notes or other communications. We are, therefore, left to agonise afterwards and wonder why they felt it necessary to take their own lives.

According to a study by the Family Therapy Association of Ireland, mothers experience intense and prolonged grief, along with many psychological and physical symptoms, following a suicide in the family. Several participants in the study experienced strong suicidal thoughts, while one such mother had attempted suicide herself. The misuse of medication and alcohol was also identified by some women as a coping strategy. Other findings of the study concerned the participants' reasons for wanting to die in order to be with their children, as well as the impact of guilt and blame on their belief system.

Unfortunately, suicide affects every community, which is why so many Deputies have participated in this debate in recent weeks. The National Suicide Research Foundation has found a worrying trend of suicide clusters in Ireland. A cluster is a chain of suicides by young people in a particular geographical area over a short space of time. Experts believe that such suicide clusters are becoming more common. In one instance, a group of 17 young adolescent men from one area committed suicide within 18 months. The National Suicide Research Foundation has produced a report with information to map suicide in Ireland. This is operating on a pilot basis in Cork in collaboration with the region's coroners.

Earlier in this debate, reference was made to the role of social networking, including comments that are left by people in the aftermath of a friend's suicide. The UK police have examined the social networking activities of young people to try to discover their reasons for committing suicide. It has become common for bereaved friends to set up memorial pages on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Bebo. Research by the department of epidemiology at Bristol University has shown a connection between media reports of suicide and copycat deaths. In addition, the research stated it was likely that discussions on websites would have a similar effect.

I urge the Minister of State, in conjunction with her colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, to address this problem through the schools system in particular. In that way, young people could be encouraged to understand the seriousness of what they are doing in leaving messages on social networking sites. We may find it difficult to comprehend but some young people feel it is possible to communicate with the dead through social networking. Sometimes, this is a mechanism for them to cope with the grief and mourning they are going through. It is a cry for help from them, which needs to be addressed, and I think schools are the best venues in which to do this.

In recent weeks, Facebook launched a facility in association with the Samaritans that allows people to get help for a friend whom they believe may be suicidal. It allows friends to alert the Samaritans through the Facebook help centre where they can provide content that suggests a friend may be suicidal. The Samaritans have also launched an awareness campaign on their Facebook page that tells people how to recognise risk factors for suicide among their friends. These factors include a family history of suicide, easy access to means of suicide, a previous suicide attempt, a history of behavioural disorder, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, family dysfunction, marital status, physical illness, imprisonment and unemployment. Unfortunately, in most cases, it is scarily obvious that the bulk of deaths by suicide involve young men.

In primary schools, the SPHE course encourages children to talk about their physical health and well-being. Teachers should also be exploring mental health issues at a much earlier stage, as well as bringing them up at second level. Children and adolescents are under massive pressures, including economic ones. We should not pile any further pressure on our young people, but mechanisms are required to let them discuss such problems in order to relieve them.

I wish the Minister of State well in her new portfolio. In addition, I acknowledge the work of my colleague, Deputy Neville, in this respect.

See this speech in context