Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share time with Senator Susan O'Keeffe.

I welcome the Minister of State and pay tribute to her personal commitment on these issues - mental health and suicide prevention. I welcome the positive points made in her contribution, particularly on the project to replace the Central Mental Hospital. We know about its highly vulnerable population of prisoners and the high number of mental health issues among the prison population, on which the Irish Penal Reform Trust has worked. I asked the Leader earlier for a separate debate on the national dementia strategy. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland is seeking to achieve a roll-out of the strategy, on which a separate debate would be worthwhile.

I welcome to the Visitors Gallery Mr. Mark Vincent Healy who has done huge work on the particular issue of suicide prevention. He has reminded me that, on Remembrance Day, we will see two Irish citizens take their own lives and will 40 self-harm as potential suicides. Others have talked about the figures, but Mr. Healy has undertaken major work in researching the links between clerical child sexual abuse and suicide, of which the Minister of State is well aware. As Mr. Healy says, it is important to see an evidence-based approach targeting suicide prevention services for this known and highly vulnerable group. The Minister of State gave a commitment to exame the funding of such research and I ask her to consider providing some resources to look at the link between this group of people, to whom society owes an enormous amount, and the experience of child sexual abuse, particularly by clerics, and alarming suicide rates.

There is also a huge amount of work being done on the cost associated with suicide. We all the human cost and have been touched by suicide among friends or family members, but there is also an enormous economic cost to society. The money allocated for suicide prevention services, almost €9 million, is only a small amount when compared to the enormous cost to society suicide represents. There is a human and economic cost. I ask the Minister of State to look at the link between child sexual abuse and suicide rates.