Lorraine Higgins (Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for the hard work she has done in the area of mental health. In particular I commend her on her commitment to addressing the issue of suicide, which has blighted communities throughout Ireland in recent years. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this emotive debate. My own community has been affected many times by the issue in recent years and it would have been remiss of me not to elicit and share the views of local people.

It is a sad reflection on modern reality that more than 500 people chose to commit suicide in 2011. However, I acknowledge that Ireland is by no means unique in this regard. The Minister of State indicated that the figure for Ireland is akin to the population of a small village. The worldwide figure is almost equivalent to the population of Dublin because 900,000 people worldwide died by committing suicide. This represents one death every 40 seconds. On a global scale suicide ranks among the three leading causes of death for those aged between 15 and 44. In the past 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% internationally.

It would be foolhardy to suggest that all suicides can be prevented but we must be mindful that the majority of them can. A number of measures should be considered to ameliorate this societal scourge. We must ask what we can do to prevent people from believing suicide is the only option. People have to cope with a myriad of pressures in this economic climate. The increase in the provisional figures for 2011 is not a fluke because financial pressures have led to mental illness and, in many cases, suicide since the Celtic tiger's demise. A considerable number of people speculated or purchased property at grossly inflated prices, while others took on credit cards, store cars or bought second cars at the height of the boom. The American dream became quintessentially Irish and Ireland became a monetary utopia facilitated by easy money and aggressive marketing from the banks, a lack of Government intervention and blatant disregard for regulations. In 2012 these same people are now bearing the brunt of failed banking policies. They are in negative equity and some of them are unemployed while they fight to save their family homes and, indeed, their families. These people cannot deal with the doom and gloom that has been foisted on them and they certainly cannot handle the increasing pressure from the banks and their debt collection departments.

I have been contacted by several individuals who are in despair over their treatment and the fact that they have no hope or light at the end of the tunnel. These people are on the edge and they believe they have no support. While I recognise that the corporate sector works on an entirely different basis to most others, we must seek higher standards from those who are tasked with debt collection. We must remind them they have a duty of care to their customers which extends beyond the contractual. In particular, I draw their attention to section 11 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 which provides that a person who makes a demand for payment of a debt shall be guilty of an offence if, "the demands by reason of their frequency are calculated to subject the debtor or a member of the family of the debtor to alarm, distress or humiliation". We should be more active in securing convictions against those who breach this criminal code. Debt collectors must strive to be as compassionate as possible and for that reason I urge the Minister of State to liaise with her ministerial colleagues to investigate the possibility of introducing a suicide training programme for bank employees who work in the area of debt collection. This is important in light of the number of repossessions that have occurred over the past several years and the increasing number of people who are in default of their mortgages.

We also need to deal with suicide prevention issues at an early stage. Let us start at secondary school and ensure every teacher is trained in suicide awareness and prevention before our term in government concludes. It is imperative that teachers are assisted to identify early warning signs and to ensure our young people are educated that suicide is very much a permanent solution to a temporary problem. As part of this, schools should have an integrated programme with activities to help those with low self-esteem and social complacency.

As a Government, we must be mindful of the repercussions of cutbacks to essential services and reliefs currently available in schools. For that reason, we need more joined-up thinking between the various Departments to ensure decisions made in the education sector, in particular, give due regard to this issue. We also need to be more proactive with suicide prevention initiatives. We need to examine the implementation of a new communications policy whereby we liaise with the various mobile telephone operators and ensure that, along with general customer care numbers, numbers for groups such as Console, Pieta House and the Samaritans are also automatically stored on telephones sold in Ireland. Suicide spots also need to be identified. We all know where they are and perhaps signposts should be erected at these locations warning of the consequences of adverse action.

Our focus should be on a bringing about a lasting reduction in the number of suicides and suicide attempts. Factors that may result in young people taking their own lives need to be identified, assessed and eliminated at an early stage. We also need to raise general awareness about suicide and provide psycho-social support to people with suicidal thoughts or experiences of attempted suicide. We must be mindful that everybody is not happy or confident 365 days a year and most suicides do not happen without warning. We must listen for that noise and we must be sufficiently engaged with the services on offer in order that people can be diverted as required because one suicide is one too many.