Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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59. To ask the Minister for Health his views on the high numbers of Travellers affected by suicide (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48182/17]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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In 2015, the Government launched Connecting for Life, Ireland's National Strategy to Reduce Suicide with the aim of reducing suicide and self-harm over 2015-2020. The Strategy sets out a vision where fewer lives are lost through suicide, and where communities and individuals are empowered to improve their mental health and well-being. It provides community-based organisations with guidelines, protocols and training on effective suicide prevention.

Travellers have been identified as a priority group within Connecting for Life. One of the main goals in Connecting for Life is to target approaches to reduce suicidal behaviour and improve mental health among priority groups. Responsibility for monitoring and reporting systems to support the delivery of the Strategy has been assigned to the National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP). Some key achievements of this Strategy have included the on-going provision of free, evidence-informed suicide and self-harm training in communities nationwide with over 9,000 individuals completing training in 2016, and the successful delivery of the #littlethings mental health and wellbeing campaign. NOSP also support the work of 21 Resource Officers for Suicide Prevention across Ireland, guiding their strategic development of local Connecting for Life action plans.

In addition to this, in July 2017, the Department of Rural and Community Development announced the approval of the 2017 Dormant Accounts Action Plan. Additional funding of up to €3.46 million is being made available to the Department of Health in the period 2017-2019 to support a wide range of marginalised service users including refugees, transgender persons, Travellers, Roma, people with dementia and older people.

Under this is a specific mental health initiative for Travellers, which has been allocated €500,000. The aim of this measure is to develop Traveller mental health initiatives to reduce suicide and improve mental health outcomes for Travellers. These initiatives include maintaining and promoting positive mental health and wellbeing, and improving Traveller access to mainstream mental health services through the development of culturally appropriate services. This proposal is in line with the actions proposed in the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy, which was also launched this year.