Calls for national suicide research programme

STORIES of families struck by suicide were brought into the public arena yesterday as politicians were urged to push for a national research programme into people taking their own lives.

The Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children yesterday heard how there was a vacuum of information on the reasons behind rising death numbers and clusters of young people deciding to end their lives.

TDs and senators heard how one project had tracked the grieving families of 104 suicide victims and offered them a platform to vent their emotions through the arts.