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

I join Deputy MacSharry in welcoming the reduction in the number of people taking their lives by suicide.

As I said earlier, one death is one too many and we must continue to work towards reducing the number of deaths by suicide further into the future. Tackling suicide is, of course, about a great deal more than the National Office of Suicide Prevention. Funding for mental health has increased from €711 million in 2012 to €853 million now, which is an increase of €140 million. That increase in the last five or six years dwarfs any annual budget of the Road Safety Authority. Specifically, the National Office of Suicide Prevention has seen its budget increase from €4 million in 2012, when the Deputy's party left office, to €11.6 million today, which is a trebling of the budget since my party came to office, initially with the Labour Party and now with Independents. I do not necessarily agree with the mathematical approach the Deputy takes and would not advocate the funding of any agency on a kind of per-death basis. That would not be the right approach.

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