Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 103: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if she will make a statement on the number of suicide attempts among young persons in County Kerry; and if her attention has been drawn to the reasons for this trend. [16030/05]

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 104: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the action she is taking to tackle the unusually high rate of suicide in County Kerry. [16031/05]

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 103 and 104 together.

As the Deputy is aware, work is well under way on the preparation of a national strategy for action on suicide prevention. The strategy, which involves the project management unit of the Health Service Executive in partnership with the national suicide review group supported by the Department of Health and Children will be action-based from the outset and will outline the priority initiatives for suicide prevention and mental health promotion across the country for the coming years. All measures aimed at reducing the number of deaths by suicide will be considered in the preparation of the strategy which will be published in September of this year.

Suicide is a serious social problem and every suicide and attempted suicide is a tragic event. I am aware that there has been an increase in the level of suicidal behaviour in County Kerry in recent times and can assure the Deputy that account will be taken of the reasons for this increase in the formulation of the national strategy.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 105: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the number of suicides and attempted suicides in County Kerry between 2002 and 2004 inclusive; and the number of suicides and attempted suicides by persons under the age of 25 in County Kerry between 2002 and 2004 inclusive. [16032/05]

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 106: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the number of deaths from suicide by county between 2002 and 2004 inclusive. [16033/05]

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 105 and 106 together.

Data on mortality are compiled by the Central Statistics Office and published in the annual and quarterly reports on vital statistics. The latest period for which data are available is January to September 2004 and these figures are set out in the tables below in addition to figures for 2002 and 2003. The national parasuicide registry collects data on persons presenting to hospital as a consequence of parasuicide, or deliberate self harm. Annual reports for the years 2002 and 2003 show the numbers of treated episodes of deliberate self harm in Tralee General Hospital were 275 and 277 respectively. Of these, 91 were aged under 25 years in 2002 and approximately 82 in 2003. Data for 2004 are not yet available.