The state was lacking an integrated, structured approach to tackling suicide, the secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology said at the weekend.
Dr John Connolly, of the Western Health Board, was speaking at the association's annual conference in Ennis, which took "Youth Suicide" as its theme.
Suicide is the most common cause of death for males aged under 25 in the Republic. Last year, one third of the 439 people who died by suicide were under 30. Dr Connolly said 504 people had died by suicide in 1998 and it was hoped the decline over the 12 months was not a statistical anomaly. Suicidal behaviour was complex, he said, and prevention strategies should not be simplistic and reactive. "We have to see that suicide prevention is everybody's business and it begins very early on in family life," he said.
Strategies involved educating people in self-esteem and positive mental health, identifying the types of suicidal behaviour and risk groups, and educating professionals in "assertive treatment of depression". "We find, in many instances, a lot of depression goes unrecognised and even where it is recognised, it is often under-treated." Dr Connolly added that he would like to see a more clear-cut national strategy that could be monitored and studied. A massive psychological autopsy study had been undertaken in Finland as part of a multi-faceted strategy, he said.
In the Republic, a national task force has recommended that a suicide resource officer should be appointed in each health board and that "young people be further researched". The National Suicide Review Group was established to monitor a programme of recommendations.
Prof Carol Fitzpatrick of UCD concluded from research that thoughts of suicide and acts of self-harm were common among Irish adolescents. She said parents of three per cent of a group of 195 adolescents aged 11 to 18 said their children had talked of harming themselves, but none reported acts of self-harm. But 15 per cent of the adolescents reported thoughts of harming or killing themselves, and seven per cent reported they had tried to harm or kill themselves.
In a sample of 76 adolescents attending a community child mental health service, 21 per cent reported they had thoughts of harming or killing themselves, and 21 per cent said they had tried to do so.