There is hardly a cemetery in the State which has not seen, in recent years, the burial of a man or woman who has died by suicide. In many, any reasonably well informed local person could point out the graves of two or three young men who have taken their own lives. The recorded rate of suicide more than quadrupled between 1945 and 1995. While the figures for 1945 may have significantly understated the true situation, experts agree that there has been a real and worrying increase in this tragic phenomenon. For young men, the situation is especially bad - their suicide rate is nearly ten times higher than that for young women.
In the face of these developments, the report of the National Task Force on Suicide is very welcome. It is clear that the work of reducing suicide will be difficult, complex and uncertain. The report recommends that programmes be introduced in schools to teach children how to maintain positive mental health. It also wants to see sufficient provision of psychological services for schools to enable all students who need help to get it without undue delay. It wants all schools to have guidance counsellors available. It seems fair to assume that this kind of work with schoolchildren will have a valuable role to play in reducing suicide and attempted suicide among young people.
This is especially so in the light of recent research in Cork by Dr Michael J. Kelleher which suggested that the vast majority of young men who commit suicide do not seek help beforehand. Thus, the best hope of reaching them may be when they are still at school. Attempted suicide is more common among young women than among young men. The Cork research also suggested that people who attempt to take their own lives are very often unemployed, with low educational attainment and with mental illnesses or personality difficulties. Helping this group is extremely difficult and, in this context, the report's recommendation that health and social service workers be trained to understand and deal with suicide and with the possibility that it will occur, is of particular importance.
Other recommendations are surprising if only because to the lay person they appear so obvious they might reasonably be expected to be normal practice already. An example is that if potentially dangerous drugs must be prescribed for people with a history of self-poisoning, they should be given to them in quantities that would not be fatal if all taken together. If implemented, the report's recommendations will see health boards greatly upgrading the level of training and information given to their personnel in relation to suicide. This is important work. It could save lives and it is to be hoped that the health boards will embrace it enthusiastically.
But behind all this, there is a question which neither this nor any other report can answer. We like to think we live in better times than before. Few of us would want to go back to how things were in, say, the 1950s. But young people are taking their lives at a greater rate than ever before. So, too, are people over 65, especially men, for whom the suicide rate nearly doubled between 1976 and 1993. Something is wrong and we do not know what it is.