Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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963. To ask the Minister for Health his views, in the interest of collecting information on deaths by suicide, on the benefit of following up all deaths by suicide by contacting the mental health services to ascertain if there was a recent contact with the mental health services by the person who committed suicide prior to their death; his views that this collation of information would help inform future policy in relation to suicide; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31279/15]

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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964. To ask the Minister for Health the reason no statistics are collected in relation to the number of deaths by suicide of persons who were in the care of the Mental Health Care Service in the days or weeks prior to the suicide; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31280/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 963 and 964 together.

National mortality data including that relating to suicide is published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). This data is made available on a quarterly and annual basis and is categorised by county, age and gender. A number of sources of information are used by the CSO to inform the classification of death including the Medical Cause of Death Certificate, the Coroner’s Certificate and Form 104, a statistical form which is completed by An Garda Siochána following an inquest. It should be noted that there can be a considerable delay between the death of a person and the holding of a Coroner’s Inquest. The most recent confirmed figures available for the number of deaths by suicide are for 2012, which show that there were 541 deaths that year. While we have provisional figures for 2013 (475 deaths) and 2014 (459 deaths) these are subject to revision following the Coroners’ Inquests.

I would like to point out however, that all sudden and unexplained deaths of persons availing of mental health services are notified to the Mental Health Commission and are reviewed by the HSE. Approved centres are required, under Article 14(4) of the Mental Health Act 2001 (Approved Centres) Regulations 2006 to notify the Commission of all deaths, including sudden, unexplained deaths, of any resident of an approved centre as soon as possible and in any event within 48 hours of the death occurring.

All other mental health services which may include but are not limited to day hospitals, day centres, 24 hour staffed community residences and other mental health services such as out-patient departments, resource centres, group homes, out-reach teams, home-based treatment teams and other service types are required to notify the Commission of all sudden, unexplained deaths of persons availing of their service as soon as possible and in any event within 7 days of the death occurring.

Details of the deaths notified to the Mental Health Commission in 2014 are published in the Commission’s Annual Report for 2014 which is available at .