Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I appreciate that she took the time.

Your day really is not all that different. You leave the house and go to work. It is the same as it is every day. Maybe you go for a drink with colleagues or to a match afterwards, then you come home and it is so empty. The house is so unbearably empty. A piece of your life is gone forever in one tragic event. This is a story many of us know. Almost everyone has had the experience of this tragedy in life, if not with their partner, then within their family, among friends or through neighbours. This tragedy plays out every day in our country, again and again. I am talking about suicide.

This Saturday morning, thousands of people will be waking up early in support of Darkness into Light, building awareness around suicide prevention and raising money for urgently needed mental health services. Every single day, a family have their lives changed forever by suicide. In 2023 alone, more than 300 people in this State died by suicide. While, thankfully, this has reduced from previous years, it is still far higher than we can allow it to be. It is an ever-present reality in our society and we cannot fail to treat it as anything other than an emergency. More than one in five deaths of men under 25 years of age is through suicide. That is more than any other cause of death in this age group. Three out of every four suicides in Ireland are men. This is not just a statistic but a sad reflection on something very wrong with our society. Suicide is a growing issue for women, with the percentage of female suicides increasing by nearly 10% in the past decade.

We urgently need better access to mental health services both in Dublin and throughout the country. That will not happen without significant funding from Government. We need to properly fund suicide prevention programmes. We need to fund 24-7 crisis helplines and to have a real plan to combat loneliness, isolation and other causes of suicide and self-harm. Pieta, probably the best-known suicide prevention charity in Ireland, receives the vast majority of its funding from private donations. Initiatives like Darkness into Light, the walk this Saturday, 10 May, are important events and make real progress in funding services and building awareness. However, this issue is simply too important to be left to private charities. The State is failing to provide services that are urgently required and we need swift and decisive action by the Government to fix this. We simply must act now. I strongly urge the Minister of State to do everything she can to address the epidemic before it gets any worse.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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It is a pleasure to be back in the Seanad. I congratulate the Leas-Chathaoirleach on her role. I thank Senator Andrews for raising this important issue. Every death by suicide has a devastating effect on the families, loved ones and entire community who are affected. Suicide and self-harm reduction are a priority for me as Minister of State and for Government as a whole. Just two days ago, I brought a memo to Cabinet to update Government on our work to improve suicide prevention in Ireland, including access to services and work on our new suicide reduction policy. Thankfully, I was able to update colleagues on the fact that suicide rates are declining in Ireland and between 2000 and 2021, the last year for which we have official figures, the rate had declined by over 25%. Additionally, the recently published National Suicide Research Foundation self-harm registry report highlights that, between 2010 and 2023, self-harm rates decreased by 12%, which is really welcome. As the Senator said, preliminary figures record 302 deaths by suicide in 2023. That is the lowest preliminary figure in over 20 years. For example, the rate in 2022 was 410 initially, upgraded to 436, so it was a significant reduction. There is a significant time lag in reporting on deaths by suicide, and the number of 302 will be revised upwards as coroners' investigations conclude, but the overall decline shows progress in suicide reduction in Ireland. It is welcome, but I understand and have said that we have so much more to do, particularly in terms of access to services.

When one looks at the suicide figures - it is something I spend a lot of time on - one sees that approximately 80% of all suicides in Ireland are male and 20% are female. Of all the counselling supports that are provided across the country, two thirds are accessed by women but only one third are accessed by males. There is an onus on all of us to try to support and encourage men, especially young men but also middle-aged and older men, to reach out and access counselling supports. Women will speak more freely. They will sit down with someone, have a cup of tea and speak about how they are feeling, their emotional well-being, their peace of mind and whether they are depressed, lonely or struggling. There is a big onus on all of us to do that.

The Senator spoke about private charities. My budget this year has allocated €100 million to organisations such as Jigsaw, Pieta, MyMind, SpunOut and the Samaritans. That is €100 million, and I want to commend and compliment Pieta for the work it does. I increased its budget this year and it does a phenomenal amount of work. I have a great working relationship with it and would encourage everyone to get out and walk for Darkness into Light on Friday night into Saturday morning. It is a great experience and you see many people walking there who are bereaved by suicide. It does help, and the support they get is really important.

This year, I have secured €2 million to specifically target men who require counselling. I am focusing on those who do not have medical cards, as we provide counselling under the counselling in primary care, CIPC, service. We are working on how to ensure that men who need counselling but are unable to afford it can get counselling free of charge through their GPs.

I believe there is no health without mental health and that suicide is everybody's business. I would encourage everybody not to be afraid to speak about it. I welcome the opportunity to come to the Seanad today to speak about it. I will touch on the Dublin services in the next piece.

Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)
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The reduction in income from Darkness into Light walks and various activities means that Pieta will need more from the State for services, otherwise services are unfortunately going to close. I acknowledge the thousands of volunteers who wake up extra early in support of Pieta's Darkness into Light walk. Funds raised by Pieta are already down for Darkness into Light, and there is a real worry for the services because, without the money raised by Darkness into Light, those services will close. This is a major concern for everyone, as the services Pieta provides are desperately needed within the community. It is a concern for me, as somebody who has been involved in organising the Darkness into Light walk annually, that many State agencies are increasingly imposing barriers to communities running these events. Dublin City Council makes it almost impossible. There are event management plans, risk management plans and ecology reports. The amount of barriers local authorities are putting up is horrendous, and they make it difficult for communities to organise important events like this.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I look forward to walking on my own Darkness into Light walk in Portlaw this weekend. I normally attend the one in Waterford city but this time I am staying local. It is great to see all of these walks. Initially, they were in the big cities and towns but now they are in nearly every community, which has to be welcomed.

I want to touch on some of the funding that has been provided. I recently increased funding for suicide crisis counselling through Pieta, the national suicide bereavement liaison service and the national Traveller Counselling Service. There are also dedicated resource officers for suicide prevention in each of the Dublin health regions, promoting and co-ordinating suicide prevention initiatives in their local areas.Work to enhance services in Dublin and nationwide has taken place through Connecting for Life, our national suicide reduction strategy, and this has seen sustained investment in funding. As Minister of State, I fund the National Office for Suicide Prevention, whose budget has tripled between 2012 and 2025, from approximately €5 million to €15 million. We recently went out for public consultation for a new Connecting for Life process, which is our programme for reducing suicide. Unbelievably, we got 1,895 submissions. The last time we went out for public consultation on this, we got 300 submissions. Those 1,900 submissions show that people are speaking more openly about their mental health. I encourage everyone, especially men, to do so. I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to come into the Seanad today; I appreciate it.