Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and I am glad to have the opportunity to speak briefly on this very important topic. I am not very familiar with it and not qualified like Senator John Crown, but I lost two friends, two first cousins, to suicide. Like everybody else, I fail to understand why two young people with great lives ahead of them ended their lives in this way. However, I am greatly informed by Councillor Liam Brazil from Lemybrien, County Waterford who has written to me and probably the Minister and most Members of the House on the issue, about which I have spoken to him a number of times. He believes that every year more than 600 people take their lives by suicide. He says this figure represents those deaths by suicide that are reported, but the figures show that for every two deaths reported, there is one unreported. The Minister will know if that is right or wrong. Councillor Brazil believes that adding these statistics together would give a corrected figure of 750 suicides per year. Obviously such a figure is frightening and implies that there are 64 deaths every month or 16 per week by suicide.
Councillor Brazil believes we must treat mental health as a priority, as I am sure the Minister does. As Councillor Brazil says, it is often spoken about in the medical profession as striving to provide holistic care for patients, but he wonders if this can be achieved when there is such a deficit in the care we provide for people with mental health needs. He further states he believes a committee on mental health and suicide should be established, with an inclusive membership from all disciplines associated with mental health care and those who have been affected by suicide.
Councillor Brazil says there must be an investigation of the need to introduce mandatory annual counselling sessions for all second level students, which could be achieved through an initiative similar to the Green Flag initiative and could provide for positive health. He says:

It could make a huge difference and it might help to break the stigma that is attached to mental health and suicide. We need to let the youth of our country understand that suicide is not for a day, a night, a week or a holiday. Suicide is final.

As my colleague, Senator Colm Burke, said, it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
We are all hugely concerned but feel powerless and ask ourselves what we can and should do. Like the cross-party Oireachtas group on mental health, I welcome the progress made in appointing new multi-disciplinary staff for community mental health teams. The group notes that, as of last September, 721 of the 891 posts allocated for 2012 and 2013 have been filled. Obviously, we wish that there were more.
There has been an improvement in reporting activity in mental health services, with information being collected on the numbers being referred and on waiting times for a first appointment.

The commitment to increasing the involvement of service users, family members and carers has been progressed with the appointment of an interim head of service user, family member and carer engagement to the HSE's national mental health management team. The group also acknowledges the personal commitment of the Minister to the implementation of the Government policy, A Vision for Change, and to the reform of mental health services. However, it states that Ireland's mental service continues to be under pressure. Recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show that there were 554 deaths from suicide in 2011, although Mr. Liam Brazil believes the figure is higher. In 2012, the national registry of deliberate self-harm recorded 1,210 presentations nationally to hospital due to deliberate self-harm. Demand on child and adolescent mental health services continues to increase, having risen by 10% between March 2013 and 2014. Waiting times had increased by 8% at the end of March 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. It has been reported that demand for counselling in primary care service has been outstripping capacity, with 1,000 people on the waiting list for this service at the end of February 2014.

Although homeless people are extremely vulnerable to mental health difficulties combined with addiction problems, dedicated mental health services for this group have been under-resourced. One recent study of a homeless hostel in Dublin found that 82% of residents had a current mental health diagnosis and that many also had difficulties with substance abuse. Obviously we are all disappointed that the budget 2014 allocation for community mental health services was €20 million rather than the €35 million which, apparently, was committed.

I am ill-informed despite the fact that I am aware of the issue of suicide. It is a frightening situation. None of us know what we should do. I look forward to hearing further from the Minister.