Suicide costing €900m a year, committee told

SUICIDE costs Irish society almost €900 million a year, an Oireachtas sub-committee heard yesterday.

“The estimated (annual) direct, indirect and human cost of suicide in Ireland is around €871.5m,” said Bairbre Nic Aongusa, mental health principal officer at the Department of Health.

“This is equivalent to a little under 1% of Gross National Product in Ireland for 2001 and 2002,” she added.

Direct and indirect costs account for €247m, or 28% of the estimate, she said.

These costs include lost productivity, earnings and tax revenues foregone.

The human cost accounts for the remaining €624.5m, or 72%. This is calculated using the “willingness to pay” economic methodology - assessing how much people are prepared to pay to reduce their probability of death by small amounts or, specifically in this case, reduce their risk of suicide.

The cross-party sub-committee, which is hearing from experts in preparation for a report on the high levels of suicide in Ireland, was also told the number of people who self-harm is likely to be twice as high as figures indicate.

The National Parasuicide Registry says hospitals treat more than 11,000 self-harm cases each year.

But Dr Ella Arensman of the National Suicide Research Foundation said there could “easily” be another 10,000 cases each year going unrecorded, because people may attend a GP rather than a hospital or decline to seek treatment.

Geoff Day, the head of the newly established National Office for Suicide Prevention, outlined what their priorities would be.

The Government had granted his office funding of €500,000 this year which, he said, would be used to:

* Initiate a national campaign seeking to remove the stigma associated with mental illness and to encourage young men, in particular, to seek help.

* Develop a national skills training programme for suicide prevention.

* Improve the health service response to individuals who present at A&E departments having self-harmed.

* Improve the coordination between bereavement support services provided by a number of voluntary organisations.

He said a “comprehensive” work plan had been agreed for 2006 based on the National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention, which was launched in September.

However, he added the full implementation of the work plan depended on the Health Service Executive providing more resources.