Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise this issue. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, for her attendance and her record in contributing to mental health awareness and suicide prevention during the lifetime of this Government. Over the past 25 years, there have been many changes in how we address the issue of suicide in Ireland. Suicide was decriminalised in 1993 after I had brought three Private Members' Bills to the Seanad. The publication of the report of the national task force on suicide in 1998 was followed by the national strategy for action on suicide prevention, Reach Out, which covered the period from 2005 to 2014. These reports, along with the more recent Connecting for Life strategy, have contributed to our knowledge and understanding of suicide. I hope this will lead to a reduction in suicide levels and an improvement in the supports provided to those who are suicidal and those who have been bereaved by suicide.

Over many years, community groups have been working to support people in crisis and to reduce the suicide rates in their communities. Some of these groups operate on a national basis and support communities through local branches. Other groups were set up in response to local tragedies. Regardless of the size and structure of these groups, all of them make an invaluable contribution to reducing the risk of suicide in Ireland. It has been established that as many as 250 or 300 groups provide support to those who are at risk of suicide. The truth is that we do not know the actual figure because the sector is fragmented, with many groups working in isolation. Parts of the country are over-subscribed with support organisations, while gaps in support services exist in other parts of the country. Over the past 25 years, national and regional forums and networks have been established to share information and provide support to one another in the work they do. If we are to tackle this issue, we need to take the next step in developing our response to suicide prevention. We can do this by pulling together the collective knowledge of all the groups working in the sector and by creating a national forum into which regional networks can make an input and from which such networks can learn.

In 2013, the Irish Association of Suicidology invited the University of Ulster to draw up a report on the establishment of an accreditation model for groups working in suicide prevention. This was supported by the National Office for Suicide Prevention. The aim of the establishment of such a model would be to create a sector that can offer an improved response to those who require the services of voluntary organisations, to ensure voluntary suicide prevention groups look after their volunteers and staff and to create a forum in which experience, innovation, knowledge and the mistakes made by the voluntary sector can be shared. The idea of accreditation is not new. The American Association of Suicidology has had such a model in place since 1976. It has been talked about in Ireland since 2007. It is proposed to allow the sector to develop its own model, rather than having a model imposed on it by the State. Under the model that is proposed, the sector sets standards based on best practice within their own organisations. Groups are encouraged and supported to reach the standards they have set. With the Minister's support, funding to develop this model and commence work was agreed with the National Office for Suicide Prevention.

In March 2011, a small group of organisations working in the area of suicide prevention and operating accreditation models were consulted to see if and how the accreditation model could work in the suicide prevention sector. Over 100 organisations that provide suicide prevention services were consulted. The outcome of both consultations endorsed the need for such a model and emphasised the importance of the model being developed and run by the sector itself. There is no quick solution when such a model is being developed. The suicide prevention sector, like any other sector, has its own particular nuances that need to be addressed by the model being put in place. The development of this model will take approximately a year. A further two years will be required to allow groups to make the transition from their current operating practices to the accredited model. The benefits for service users and groups will reward the effort and time that will have to be put in over a period of three years. We envisage that the accreditation model will advise, support and assist established groups and those that will get involved in this area in years to come. This is happening on an ongoing basis. Best practice is to be advised when suicide prevention organisations are being set up and operated. This is in the interests of ensuring maximum assistance can be provided at local and national levels to voluntary organisations that seek to prevent suicide, to create an understanding of the issues around suicide and mental ill-health and, of course, to assist the suicidal and advise the bereaved on how to deal with these tragic cases.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue for discussion. It has been and continues to be a priority of the Government to deal with the current high levels of suicide and deliberate self-harm. While we will never eliminate suicide completely, we can and must make every effort to reduce the number of lives lost to suicide by ensuring a broad range of Departments, State agencies, non-statutory organisations and - perhaps most importantly - local communities are involved in a co-ordinated partnership with the aim of tackling this issue. Equally, I believe we should have a zero tolerance approach to suicide. As the House will be aware, the Government published Connecting for Life, which is Ireland’s national strategy to reduce suicide, in June of last year. The strategy, which covers the period from 2015 to 2020, 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.

Connecting for Life has seven goals: better understanding of suicidal behaviour; supporting communities to prevent and respond to suicidal behaviour; targeted approaches for those vulnerable to suicide; improved access, consistency and integration of services; safe and high-quality services; reduce access to means; and better data and research.

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, from service providers, communities, families and friends. Connecting for Life places a major value on partnership and is designed to co-ordinate and focus the efforts in suicide prevention. The National Office for Suicide Prevention helps to support a wide array of work in communities, in partnership with the voluntary sector across the country, that focus on promoting positive mental health and reducing suicide and self-harm by providing very substantial amounts of grant funding each year as well as by assisting in co-ordinating and giving strategic direction to the work undertaken.

One of the objectives in the new strategy is to develop and implement national standards and guidelines for statutory and non-statutory organisations contributing to suicide prevention, which is what the Deputy is looking for. A working group comprising representatives from community, statutory and voluntary organisations was established to progress the development of a set of national minimum standards for organisations working in the area of suicide prevention. The work of this group is well advanced. In December 2015, the group submitted a first draft report to the National Office for Suicide Prevention, and this is currently under consideration. A range of local and national services provide suicide bereavement support to families and communities. The National Office for Suicide Prevention, Console and Turas le Cheile have developed national quality standards for all level of bereavement support in Ireland. These standards provide a significant resource for those organisations providing support to individuals at a very vulnerable time in their lives. In addition, a number of service evaluations have been commissioned by the National Office for Suicide Prevention, with a view to ensuring that services which receive funding from NOSP are safe, effective and evidence-based and are in line with the goals and objectives in Connecting for Life. It is the Government's hope that the implementation of this new strategy will help us achieve our goal of fewer lives lost through suicide through an improved response to suicide, including improved access to high quality services.

I thank the Deputy. We are coming near to the time an election will be called and I know the Deputy is not standing. On behalf of all those who have had an interest in mental health, whether good or bad, down through the years, I thank him for being one of the pioneers in the area and one of the very first to talk about it in an open fashion in this House.

Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for her kind words about the work done by many organisations in which I have been involved over more than a quarter of a century, before we decriminalised suicide. We should recognise the advances made in our understanding and the greater openness on the issue of suicide and mental ill-health. We still have a long way to go to full understanding and to destigmatising the area of mental ill-health. Some work has been done but a large amount of stigmatisation still exists, as is shown in research in the past few years by Amnesty International and St. Patrick's Hospital. That work is ongoing and hopefully we will see the fruits of that in the coming period.

It is important that we have and co-ordinate a national relationship with new groups starting up in the area to help them with understanding, knowledge, advice and training. These groups do a lot of very good work in their communities and there is much support out there because a lot of work is done when these groups are sought out for assistance. When one wants to set up a group because of a tragedy in an area, a bereaved family is often very helpful in doing it. They often talk to me about what should be done, how they would do it and where they would take it. The work they want to complete is so important and value can be added to their work by the establishment of a clear set of guidelines and advice on how we could advance and encourage them. Such groups can become very isolated, in time, in a particular area.

I reiterate my thanks to the Minister of State for the work she has done on mental health and for her commitment to it. Hopefully those of us who are involved in the area will have the opportunity to continue in some way. We recognise the work of the Minister of State and her commitment over the period of this Government.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I do not want this to turn into a mutual admiration society but I thank the Deputy and I appreciate his words more than those of most. It is important we continue to develop both national guidelines and standards for people who do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to do the very best job possible so it is essential that the message which is delivered is both safe and effective. The only people who we can be sure will abide by the standards and the guidelines are those we fund. We do not fund everyone and those we do not fund are very anxious to get the training and insights others have gained. People in this area only want to do their best and everybody comes with clean hands. We have made a difference - I say "we" deliberately because I am talking about the people of Ireland - in attitudes towards mental health and that attitude has probably had a more profound effect than anything else we have done.

Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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This is probably my last contribution, after 26 years, to a debate in this House. I thank the many people with whom I have been involved and who have supported, assisted and even opposed me over that period. It has been an enormous privilege and an honour to have had an opportunity to make a contribution in our national Parliament. In the year that we commemorate 100 years since the 1916 Rising, it is a marvellous and humbling experience to sit in the Parliament for which they died. I thank the many staff I have had over 26 years, the various leaders of the Fine Gael Party and others who supported the work I do, especially in the area of mental health and suicide. I thank the Fine Gael Party for giving me the opportunity to be a Member of the Oireachtas in that period in both the Seanad, for eight years, and the Dáil, where I have been for almost 19 years. Above all, I thank the constituents of Limerick West, now County Limerick, for their support in sending me to this House and the Seanad electorate for sending me there in the period before this. It was an enormous privilege and I sincerely thank the Acting Chairman for giving me the opportunity to thank my family and my supporters, friends within my organisation and people who voted for me and who worked so hard to keep me here. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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In recognition of the long service Deputy Neville, like many others, has given to the Houses of the Oireachtas, it should be said that it was a service characterised by participation, perseverance and a spirit and goodwill to pursue his objectives in a way that was not offensive to anybody but was inclusive of all. The Deputy can be rightly proud.