Groups to seek suicide awareness as election issue

Businessman Noel Smyth has said groups advocating improved mental health services will seek to make suicide awareness and prevention a major issue in the forthcoming general election campaign.

Mr Smyth said the groups would seek the implementation of three reports on suicide and mental health service reform that they have submitted to the Government in recent years. This would involve spending about €10 million more per year over five years and the introduction of targets for reducing suicide rates.

Mr Smyth is the chairman of the charity Turning the Tide of Suicide (3Ts) which hosted a rally on suicide at the Mansion House in Dublin yesterday.

Representatives of all the political parties, who attended the event, called for improvements in mental health services.

Fianna Fáil chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children John Maloney said the issue of suicide was now "a national crisis" and that "far, far more needs to be done".

Mr Smyth said he would be calling on people affected by mental health issues to contact political parties and candidates to seek out their views on improving services and the implementation of the reports. One of the reports was drawn up by the Oireachtas Health Committee.

There would be another rally in two months, where those attending could spell out the response of parties.

The director of the National Office for Suicide Prevention, Geoff Day, said continued and sustained exchequer funding was key to the implementation of the reports and services. Voluntary groups were doing very good work at local level but the HSE did not have funding to meet the amounts they were seeking.

He said there were just under 500 deaths from suicide annually in Ireland in recent years and about 11,000 cases of self harm were dealt with by A&E. However, it was believed there was a large level of "hidden self harm" and the true figure could be four or five times higher.

UCD Professor of Psychiatry Kevin Malone said the Government was spending only about 50 cent per capita on suicide prevention measures. In Northern Ireland the expenditure on suicide prevention was about €1.50 and in Scotland it was about €1.70. "We have powerful documents and we need to be delivering on them."

Prof Malone said that new research being carried out in Ireland had revealed "early evidence of clusters of suicides in certain locations".

Mr Maloney said that the 33 recommendations of the Oireachtas Committee report on suicide should be implemented and also that targets needed to be set.

PD Senator John Minihan agreed more needed to be done in relation to mental health and suicide but said that services had come a long way.

John Gormley of the Green Party said there was a link between alcohol and suicide but that the Government "danced to the tune of the drinks industry".