Society must remove the stigma of mental illness to allow people suffering from depression to receive help before it is too late.
That was the view of consultant psychiatrist, Dr Mosajee Bhamjee, who was speaking yesterday after the release of figures for Co Clare last year showing that more than twice the number of people committed suicide than lost their lives on the county's roads in 2001.
The provisional figures show that 15 people committed suicide in Clare last year compared to seven people who lost their lives through road traffic accidents.
Five of the people who took their own lives were aged over 50 years, while four of them were males aged under 30 years.
A spokesman for the Samaritans said the figures drew a pattern of isolation in the countryside for middle-aged people. He said: "The focus has been on young men; however these figures show a sense of rural confusion where there is uncertainty over the future of country life."
In all, 11 of the suicide victims were male with three of those aged over 50 years of age. Two women aged over 50 years also killed themselves.
Dr John F Connolly, secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology, warned against drawing too many conclusions from provisional figures for a single county, adding "one or two deaths here or there can make a tremendous difference to percentages".
However, he said, "the trend is that urban rates of suicide have been lower than rural rates, which is kind of surprising given religion is a protective factor against suicide, and rates of religious belief are higher in rural areas. There are a lot of other factors at play in rural areas, such as depopulation."
Figures from the Central Statistics Office show the incidence of suicide has been falling in the Republic from an all-time high of 504 such deaths in 1998. There were 439 suicides in 1999 and 413 in 2000. In the latter year, 414 people died in road incidents in the State.
Provisional figures for the first half of 2001 show a further slight reduction in suicides on the previous year.
Based in Ennis, Dr Bhamjee said many victims see suicide as a means of lifting what they perceive as a burden off the family. He said: "This is very misplaced and is something arrived at by a person in a very depressed state."
In an attempt to prevent the continuing incidence of suicide, Dr Bhamjee said mental health studies should be part of primary and secondary school education.
He also yesterday decried the lack of research into individual tragedies, stating that such work might help prevent further tragedies.
The Samaritans spokesman said "a huge proportion of people who take their lives find it difficult to talk about what they are going through in what is often called the 'Black Tunnel'."