Senior clergy from the four largest Christian churches in Ireland speak with one voice on suicide and self-harm as they do on many social issues, Dr Patrick Walsh, the Catholic Bishop of Down and Conor, has told a Stormont committee.
Dr Walsh joined Archbishop Alan Harper, Primate of the Church of Ireland; the Rev Roy Cooper, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, and Dr John Finlay, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in calling for greater co-ordination of services to help prevent suicide.
Assembly members on the health committee are working on a report to be submitted to the Minister for Health. It will address the more than 7,000 incidents of suicide and self-harm recorded annually.
Dr Walsh told the committee that clergy were often among the first to be called out to cases of suicide and were also the first port of call for those considering self-harm.
The Rev Roy Cooper stressed the association between dwelling on personal problems and suicide.
For many people feeling under pressure, he said the church was a significant part of their local community.
He cited the prevalence of depression, especially among those aged between 12 and 18, and he linked it to a feeling of lack of self-worth in individuals.
Dr Finlay told the committee the churches believed that people were not now coping with the pressures of life in a manner that their predecessors once did. He also referred to the existence of what he called a "copycat culture" among teenagers and to the impact of popular culture on the young.
Archbishop Alan Harper suggested that high levels of suicide can be associated with rapid and wide-ranging changes in society. Since the churches were part of that society, he said the decline in religious practice and affiliation had to be considered a contributory factor to suicide. The increasing tide of secularisation, he said, could have a negative impact on feelings of wellness among individuals.
Suicide was not merely a mental health matter, he added, claiming that to treat it as such was itself a problem. All the churches were "social networks", he said, and they could assist many people to access the relevant services provided by both church and state.
Many clergy felt under- prepared to deal with the threat of suicide and self-harm in individual cases and also in the assistance of those bereaved through suicide.
He called for an extension of the mental health review in Northern Ireland and he suggested to the committee that rates of suicide among the elderly were, for various reasons, under-reported.
Committee chair Iris Robinson agreed, adding that post-natal mothers were also vulnerable.
Mr Cooper said that churches could have been overly judgmental in the past but were taking a more accepting stance now.
Bishop Walsh spoke of the need for greater levels of formal training for youth workers and Archbishop Harper said the declining number of clergy was having a negative impact on the levels of pastoral care they were able to give.
Committee member Dr Kieran Deeny said suicide was a "societal issue and should be dealt with by wider society".