Figure for self-harm may reach 60,000, TDs told

Up to 60,000 people in Ireland may be deliberately harming themselves each year - and the vast majority of them never come to the attention of the health services, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

In a presentation to the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, the National Suicide Research Foundation said that a recent large-scale school-based survey in the State had indicated that 85 per cent of those who had harmed themselves did not seek medical help.

The director of research at the foundation, Dr Ella Arensman, said that on a national basis these figures would indicate that there were at least 10,000 cases of deliberate self-harm by adolescents each year that did not come to the attention of the health services.

Paul Corcoran of the foundation said that the number of "hidden" cases of deliberate self- harm would not be as high in the older age categories as for adolescents.

However, he said that it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the overall national figure would be between 50,000 and 60,000.

Dr Arensman said that around 11,200 people who had committed deliberate self-harm presented to hospital in 2003. Around 2,000 of these were repeat cases.

Dr Arensman said that there were almost 500 cases of suicide annually in Ireland. However, she said that there were indications that the actual figure for suicide may be under-reported.

"For example, 5 to 10 per cent of single road traffic accidents may be disguised suicides, but in most cases they are classified as accidents", she said in her presentation to the committee.

Around 80 per cent of cases of suicides involve men.

"The peak rates are in young men aged 20 - 29, with men under 35 years accounting for approximately 40 per cent of all suicides. At European level, Ireland ranks seventh among the countries with the highest rates of suicide in young men," she said.

She said that although female suicide was relatively uncommon, "the rates in young women have doubled since the beginning of the 1990s".

Dr Arensman said that research was needed into suicide, medically treated cases of self-harm and hidden cases of self- harm.

"We need to focus on research into risk factors associated with suicide. In Ireland, no systematic research evidence is available and we don't have any specific information about the risk profile of the young adult Irishman who is at risk of suicide," she said.

She said that there were plans to develop a national confidential inquiry into suicide deaths. This would seek to link information from various sources including the Central Statistics Office, the National Parasuicide Registry, the coroners' service and the hospital inpatient inquiry scheme. There would also be interviews with families and friends.

Fine Gael TD Dan Neville criticised the €500,000 budget for the new National Office of Suicide Prevention.

The chairman of the committee, John Maloney of Fianna Fáil, suggested that funding for suicide research could come from the private sector.