Official figures severely underestimate the true extent of deaths by suicide in Ireland, a leading mental health campaigner warned today.
Provisional data puts the death toll at 460 last year, but on World Suicide Prevention Day Fine Gael TD Dan Neville said the true number is nearer 600.
Mr Neville, president of the Irish Association of Suicidology, called on the Government to introduce programmes to tackle the issue head on.
“It is tragic to see the suicide death toll rising again,” he said. “The true figure is nearer 600. The Government must take the lead from other countries in putting in place suicide prevention programmes.”
To coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day, the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention today published its 2007 annual report.
The office noted that the Central Statistics Office (CSO) data for 2005, which is the latest year for which full figures on suicide are available, shows the number of recorded suicides at 481.
The CSO provisional data for suicide deaths in Ireland in 2006 was 409, while the CSO provisional data for 2007 was 460.
The National Office for Suicide Prevention said as the State’s population has increased, its overall rate of suicide has reduced, although the rate of youth suicide remains the fifth highest in Europe with men under the age of 35 accounting for 40 per cent of all suicides.
Geoff Day, director of the National Office for Suicide Prevention, said: ''Whilst the overall number and rate of suicide dropped slightly in 2005 maintaining the trend of recent years, provisional figures for 2007 show a likely increase on the 2006 provisional figures.
"This may be due to improved data collection but the situation still requires all of us to continue our efforts to see a more sustained reduction in future years."
Mr Neville said evidence showed many people have been affected by suicide. “Surveys show that 15 per cent of people have a family member who died by suicide,” he said.
“Three out of four people know somebody who died by suicide and the person was most likely to be a friend or a neighbour.
“One in five of those who knew someone who took their own life said that it was a family member.
“It is clear that much experience of the issue is therefore ‘direct’ to some extent and that the impact of suicide on people is much higher than was believed.”
Depression and loneliness were given as main reasons for taking one's life in a survey, along with pressures of life, drug and alcohol use, money worries and relationship problems. Just 6 per cent of participants gave mental illness as a reason.
Elsewhere, it emerged today that rates of self harm in parts of Northern Ireland are twice those of the Republic.
A pilot scheme to examine the impact of self harm recorded how more than 1,000 patients reported to three accident and emergency units during 2007.
The interim report revealed that compared with the Republic, incidence rates in the North were 471 per 100,000 of population, compared to the Republic’s rates of 236 per 100,000 of population.
Drug overdose was the most common form of self harm (72 per cent of cases) followed by cutting, which accounts for 17 per cent of cases
The highest rates of self harm identified in the North study were among 20- to 24-year-old men and women.
Additional reporting Reuters