One in eight second-level principals who responded to a survey reported a student committing suicide in recent years. More than 80 per cent were male students.
Of the 278 principals who responded to a questionnaire sent out by the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI), to nearly 600 principals last year, 36, or 13 per cent, said there had been a death of a student through suicide in their school. More than two thirds of them had taken place in the three years up to 1996.
The ASTI general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, said that with Irish secondary school class sizes among the largest in Europe, it was extremely difficult for teachers, even those with "specific pastoral care roles", to give pupils individual attention. Many principals said the workload of their pastoral care team was "enormous."