Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this topical issue, particularly as I was unable to contribute on the Private Members' motion on mental health tabled last week. The tragic death of Gary Speed in England at the weekend highlighted the issue of suicide, as did two recent tragedies in County Kildare in the past two weeks when people took their own lives. Globally, the equivalent of one quarter of the population of Ireland take their own lives each year. Last year, 486 people died by suicide in the Republic. We should bear in mind that for every suicide, at least 20 people attempt to take their own lives. This figure does not take into consideration the number of people who self-harm and may or may not be admitted to accident and emergency units.

The safeTALK training programme is one of the suicide prevention training programmes available through the Health Service Executive's suicide prevention resource officers and their partner agencies. It is co-ordinated by the National Office of Suicide Prevention, NOSP. According to the NOSP, safeTALK is a half-day training course which prepares participants to identify persons who have thoughts of suicide and connect them to suicide first aid personnel and resources. These specific skills, known as suicide alertness, are taught with the expectation that the person learning them will use them to help reduce suicide risk in their communities.

It is interesting to note that safeTALK is one of a number of suicide prevention programmes which provided training to 3,689 people 2010. This begs the question as to whether a sufficient number of people are being trained in suicide prevention. I am informed that the target ratio for such training is to reach one in eight people. Based on the figures available to me, the ratio achieved here is one in 550 people. We must ensure funding and staff are available to co-ordinate and offer safeTALK to as many people as possible. There are 89 trainers of the programme. In one area, the number of safeTALK trainers has declined from ten to four.

The benefits of the safeTALK course are straightforward. It offers a large number of people a learning process by which they can discover precisely how to recognise individuals who may have thoughts of suicide. Other courses are also available, for example, Reach Out and ASIST, the latter of which is aimed at professionals. In addition, a new dialectical behaviour therapy, DBT, programme is being rolled out. The beauty of the safeTALK course is that it focuses on young people aged from 18 years and upwards. It is widely recognised that the 18 to 26 years age group is the most vulnerable to suicide. The two and a half hour course, which is not time consuming and is not as advanced as the ASIST course, has been internationally recognised, having proved successful in many countries.

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