Call for State to give €60m extra to cut suicide rate

An Oireachtas committee has recommended that the Government should invest an additional €60 million annually on measures to reduce the level of suicide.

The Joint Oireachtas sub-Committee on the High Level of Suicide has proposed that the Government should adopt a target of reducing the rate of suicide by 20 per cent by 2016.

The report, which is expected to be considered by the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children today, said this target might be a fitting way to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising.

It added that the rise in suicide rates over the past two decades has been particularly stark among males aged under 35 years but that an emerging trend of young female suicides among those aged under 25 years was also now apparent.

The report stated that economic policy that increases society's wealth but at the cost of society's fragmentation, family law that is weighted against fathers in non-marital situations or situations of marital breakdown as well as employment legislation that has led to less job security in a climate of negligible unemployment were associated with the increase in suicide levels.

"Being a member of a church is known to be a protective factor against suicide but our move has been relentlessly towards a more secular lifestyle.

"Alcohol consumption is strongly associated with accidental deaths, including death by suicide, but Government has failed, however, to implement its own alcohol policy - which could curb problem alcohol-use," the report said.

It added that those with mental illness are known to be at higher risk of suicide but the type of mental health service one can access is a matter of luck.

"The provision of mental health services for adolescents is high on aspiration but low on action," it stated.

It said that A&E departments deal with around 11,000 cases relating to suicidal behaviour but that there are no "swift and appropriate standardised interventions in place to treat this high-risk group and thus reduce repeat acts".