Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I will remove my political hat when dealing with this issue as there are no quick fixes to it. We must go about this business slowly and meticulously. The facts are available and we must examine them. We now know that there are more suicide deaths annually than there are road accident deaths. That is the bottom line. In 2003, a total of 11,200 people who had attempted suicide presented themselves at hospital accident and emergency units. This is a very worrying figure. Suicide is the main cause of death in people between the ages of 15 and 34, accounting for one-quarter of all deaths in this age group. Another disturbing trend is the high rate of suicide among males, which accounts for over 80% of all suicides.

When I read these figures, I reflected on the reasons for them. Upon examination, the reasons, with which we are all familiar, turn out to be the pressures facing young people. Our society has become materialistic. There is a high rate of family breakdown and the norms that used to govern behaviour have disappeared. Young people are subject to pressures from their peers and parents and pressure arising out of our education system and the points system. In addition, young people face many disappointments and work outside the professions has been devalued. Binge drinking is another contributing factor to the high suicide rate among young people. Young people feel insecure because their parents are no longer there to guide them. Young people also suffer from low self-esteem. These are the fundamental reasons why our society has become so volatile. There are supports for those who are vulnerable but they are not being used.

I decided to make some inquiries and contacted the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, of which I am a member, to ascertain what it is doing to combat suicide. The institute told me about the strategies it used and cited the City of Dublin VEC as a model for suicide prevention in Dublin. A three-pronged approach that consisted of prevention, intervention and postvention was used.

How can we devise a suicide prevention strategy? I will leave aside the health aspect for the moment because educational strategies to combat suicide are important. Every school should have a suicide prevention procedure, which they do not have at present. I do not know whether my colleague on the other side of the House is aware of this. Armed with the appropriate suicide prevention procedure, the school must operate as a team. The team effort must involve the principal, teachers, the home school link and the Early Start programme if the school operates it. Those at risk of suicide can thus be identified and helped.

The Institute of Community Health Nurses, which is my nominating body, invited me some time ago to chair one of its spring conferences. During the conference, suicide and the ways in which public health nurses deal with it was debated. Delegates spoke of the necessity of using a collective approach to deal with it. This leads on to my point that the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Education and Science must work together to combat suicide.

The Minister of State referred to social and personal health education. This works up to the junior level but more is needed. Those at risk of suicide must be identified before they enter the social and personal health education programme. Parents must also be involved in this effort. In the City of Dublin VEC, if a teacher becomes aware that a pupil is at risk of suicide, he or she contacts the guidance counsellor who in turn contacts the educational psychologist who in turn contacts the clinical psychologist. The whole process is undertaken very quickly. Suicide prevention must be a collective effort.

It appears that most suicides take place in rural areas. The reason could be the isolation and lack of supports that can result from living in a rural area. This is where public health nurses can play a major role, along with local GPs and other rural organisations. In this regard I compliment the Minister of State on the number of new bodies that are being appointed to deal with suicide. I am particularly impressed by the appointment of a suicide resource officer in each Health Service Executive area. Possibly more than one officer is needed. Very often, as a guidance counsellor, one wants to contact someone but cannot find the right person within one's area.

It is possible to prevent suicide if one puts the right structure in place. The right people are in place for intervention programmes to be set up. Postvention is a key area in which work is carried out with families. The three key words are "prevention", "intervention" and "postvention". If the Minister of State gets these three elements right, we are the road to developing an effective suicide prevention strategy.