Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Neville for raising this issue. I am taking this Topical Issue debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who is abroad on Government business.

We are all too aware that a death by suicide does not just affect family and close friends, but a community as a whole. The sometimes unanswerable questions of why, if only and what if reverberate around the community. It is at that time that those dealing with a death by suicide need to find support to make sense of what has happened, deal with their grief and learn how to live with their loss.

Sadly, too many lives in this country are lost to suicide. While we will never eliminate it completely, we should make every effort to reduce the number of lives lost by ensuring that there is a co-ordinated partnership of a broad range of Departments, State agencies, non-statutory organisations and, perhaps most importantly, local communities in tackling this issue.

Dealing with the current high levels of suicide and deliberate self-harm has been, and continues to be, a priority for the Government. As the House will be aware, the previous suicide prevention strategy, Reach Out, came to the end of its ten-year term at the end of 2014. The Minister of State requested the Department of Health and the HSE to develop a new strategic framework for suicide prevention, building on the work and achievements of Reach Out. The new strategy, Connecting for Life, which was launched by An Taoiseach and the Minister of State on 24 June, sets out a vision of an Ireland where fewer lives are lost through suicide and where communities and individuals are empowered to improve their mental health and well being through a number of specific goals, including a better understanding of suicidal behaviour, supporting communities to prevent and respond to suicidal behaviour, safe and high-quality services and improved access, consistency and integration of services.

Connecting for Life is much more than a vision. It provides a detailed and clear plan to achieve each of the goals it proposes, with defined actions and a lead agency and key partners in place for each individual objective. This action plan will be supported by robust implementation and governance structures and resourcing and communications frameworks. Monitoring and evaluation will be embedded into the implementation process, progress will be tracked and the impact of the strategy will be objectively measured against baseline indicators. The agreed implementation structure sets out clear lines of responses and accountability at all levels: political, administrative and local. The National Office for Suicide Prevention, NOSP's role and authority to support the implementation of the strategy is clearly set out.

Suicide is a complex problem and addressing suicidal behaviour means supporting people in many different ways. It also requires a co-ordinated effort across many different sectors and levels of society, for example, service providers, communities, families and friends. Connecting for Life places a significant value on partnerships and is designed to co-ordinate and focus the efforts of a broad range of Departments, State agencies, non-statutory organisations and local communities in suicide prevention. It is the Government's hope that the implementation of this new strategy will help us to achieve our goal of fewer lives lost through suicide.

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