At a time of mounting concern over the level of suicide, the Joint Oireachtas Committee's recommendations on tackling the issue strike an appropriately urgent note. They urge swift action on more than 30 areas aimed at reducing the annual suicide toll, which claimed 431 lives last year, substantially more than were killed on our roads over the same period. The steps suggested include education programmes for GPs, training for teachers on mental health promotion, increased investment in child and adolescent mental health services and more research into suicidal behaviour.
The report says that the cost of implementing all of these would be in the region of €60 million, compared to the €5 million currently spent, but new measures could help reduce the level of suicide by up to 20 per cent over the next 10 years. While the report is well-informed and clear-thinking, there is a familiar ring to many of the recommendations: they echo other studies which were never fully implemented. The 1998 taskforce on suicide prevention, for example, contained 86 recommendations, 10 of which were implemented. Reach Out, a 10-year national strategy on suicide prevention published last year by the Department of Health, issued another 20 key objectives.
It is doubtful whether there is the political will fully to implement the most costly of the latest recommendations. As well as the social stigma of suicide, which was decriminalised just over a decade ago, there is the political stigma: the perception that there are no votes in mental health.
Children and adolescents in need of mental health services have to wait for up to two years. No progress has been made in attacking the shortage of in-patients beds for adolescents with psychiatric problems.
Yet the most alarming aspect about suicide in Ireland has been the rise in the number of young people taking their lives. While the overall level of suicide is close to European Union average, the rate for young people here is the fifth highest among the 25 EU member states.
Mental health experts point to places such as Scotland as an example of how progress can be made with a combination of major investment and good planning. For the first time in 30 years, suicide rates have started to fall on a consistent basis. There are still many questions to be answered regarding suicide, there are some certainties. But it is only through sustained, targeted and properly-resourced measures that we can support people who have lost their way - and ensure that nobody faces such a crisis on their own.