Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to raise the recently published report, Connecting for Life: Ireland's National Strategy to Reduce Suicide 2015-2020. It is an important report, widely accepted nationally and internationally and warmly welcomed by the head of the mental health services in the World Health Organization at the launch by the Taoiseach in Dublin.

For a number of years, we have discussed the difficulties experienced by the State in determining the levels of suicide. The most recent statistics for 2014 show that 459 persons - 368 males and 91 females - took their own lives, but undetermined deaths numbered 62. In Northern Ireland and Britain and in Europe, undetermined deaths are counted as suicide. There is a reluctance among some coroners to bring in a verdict of suicide because of the stigma and the difficulties experienced and felt still by some families, even though there have been many efforts made to reduce the stigma around suicide. Of course, there are some suicides, such as single-occupant road traffic accidents, which cannot be identified. We would not want to exaggerate the numbers either - I have heard very exaggerated numbers in that regard - but international research in an Irish context would put it at between eight and 15. There are also drownings that cannot be identified and other tragedies that are seen as accidents but, in fact, are suicide.

Compare the 459 suicides last year with the number of road traffic deaths, which is unfortunately on the increase at 196. Our suicide levels are a little below the European average, but our rate of youth suicide is the fourth highest in Europe after Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. We have a particular problem in this regard.

The question that is always asked is why did someone take his or her life. Many studies have been done on this complex matter and we want a simple answer, but there is no simple answer to most suicides.

Addressing suicidal behaviour means supporting people in many different ways and requires a co-ordinated effort across many different sectors and levels of society. Connecting for Life is designed to coordinate and focus the efforts of a broad range of government departments, state agencies, non-statutory organisations and local communities in suicide prevention.

This is a quote from the report. To continue:

Usually no single cause or risk factor is sufficient to explain a suicidal act. Most commonly, several risk factors act cumulatively to increase an individual's vulnerability to suicidal behaviour, and risk factors interplay in different ways for different populations, groups and individuals.

In Ireland [and internationally], one in four people will use a mental health service at some stage of their lives. Research shows a strong link between mental health difficulties and death by suicide. In high-income countries, mental health problems are present in up to 90% of people who die by suicide.

I would say that everyone who dies by suicide is suffering from some level of mental ill health, although perhaps not a mental illness.

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