Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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Question 208: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of attempted suicides and deliberate self-harm in prison custody which were attributed to suicide for each of the years 2000 to 2004. [25317/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The statistical information sought by the Deputy is as follows:

The National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) established the National Parasuicide Registry in 2000 as a national monitoring system for the occurrence of parasuicide. The National Suicide Research Foundation define parasuicide as any non-fatal act which an individual deliberately undertakes knowing or believing that it may cause them physical harm or even death. It includes acts involving varying levels of suicidal intent including definite attempts at suicide and acts where the individual had no intention of dying.

The Irish Prison Service agreed with the Foundation in 2001 that the Registry should include prisons and places of detention in its statistics and the Foundation undertook to compile the statistics from records kept within each prison or place of detention. The Foundation has included a chapter on prisons and places of detention in their annual report for 2002, 2003 and 2004. The NSRF recorded 144 episodes of parasuicide in Prisons and Places of Detention in 2002. Based on the criteria applied by the NSRF the number of reported incidents for 2003 and 2004 was 180 (involving 100 individuals) and 170 (involving 121 individuals) respectively.