Written answers

Tuesday, 24 May 2005

Department of Health and Children

Suicide Incidence

9:00 pm

Photo of Michael LowryMichael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)
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Question 152: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the number of deaths by suicide in each county between 1997 and 2004; the number of attempted suicides in each county between 1997 and 2004; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17097/05]

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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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 is available is January to September 2004 and this data is set out in the following table in addition to the data for 1997 to 2003 as requested by the Deputy.

Number of deaths from suicide by county, 1997 to 2004.
County 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Jan to Sept 2004
Carlow 10 5 2 2 8 3 6 2
Cavan 11 4 4 7 9 10 8 2
Clare 10 15 12 8 13 16 13 12
Cork 82 74 53 67 100 62 64 47
Donegal 17 14 14 13 15 20 14 9
Dublin 105 118 120 115 120 103 111 53
Galway 33 28 23 20 23 26 21 10
Kerry 17 26 19 20 20 13 9 12
Kildare 19 12 8 20 12 21 18 10
Kilkenny 6 13 14 17 15 11 11 9
Laois 5 9 5 6 7 6 4 2
Leitrim 6 5 4 4 6 7 3 0
Limerick 18 28 26 32 16 30 24 13
Longford 2 3 6 3 6 4 2 2
Louth 12 16 11 13 7 14 16 7
Mayo 16 16 13 17 17 18 10 9
Meath 13 11 16 11 19 19 11 13
Monaghan 7 8 5 11 2 4 8 4
Offaly 6 10 9 18 12 11 7 8
Roscommon 7 7 6 6 5 4 3 1
Sligo 3 12 6 3 10 4 7 2
Tipperary 16 20 22 20 23 22 26 10
Waterford 18 11 11 12 17 12 8 8
Westmeath 4 13 13 9 9 6 6 5
Wexford 21 18 16 23 19 17 23 4
Wicklow 14 18 17 9 9 15 11 7
Total 478 514 455 486 519 478 444 261
Note: Figures for 2003 and 2004 are provisional.
Source: Central Statistics Office.

Data on the number of persons presenting to hospitals following deliberate self harm has been collated by the National Parasuicide Registry since its establishment in 2000 and published in its annual report. The third annual report published in December 2004 indicates that there were approximately 11,200 presentations due to deliberate self harm in 2003. As information is not available from all hospitals, it is not possible to provide data on a county-by-county basis as requested by the Deputy. The National Parasuicide Registry has however secured approval to collect data from all acute hospitals in the country from 2004.

As the Deputy is aware, work is now 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.

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