Committee hears of "dramatic" rise in suicides by young males

SUICIDE among young people could not be blamed solely on examination stress or bullying, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Family has been told.

Dr Myra Barry, a senior psychologist with the Eastern Health Board, said that while exam stress and bullying could not be ruled out as contributory factors in suicide, a variety of different reasons were usually involved.

There had been a dramatic increase in suicides by young males, which were up 300 per cent since 1980, she said. The problem needed to be tackled at individual, family, community and national level.

Dr Michael Kelleher, director of the National Suicide Research Foundation, told the committee of his study of 1,000 cases of attempted suicide in Munster. Twenty per cent of the cases involved students, and 14-18 per cent of these survivors said exam pressures were a factor, though there were many others. Up to 10 per cent reported bullying as one factor.

A second study of all suicide cases since 1976 failed to find any significant increase in the suicide rate at the time of the Leaving and Junior Cert exams, and at the time when the results come out. While there might be a link in some individual cases, there was no noticeable trend, he said.

Another investigation of 18 suicides in Cork found no mention for example at the coroners inquest, of either bullying or exam stress as a factor.