Water safety chief makes suicide prevention plea

The country’s water safety watchdog has appealed for more people to undertake suicide prevention courses, after another spate of drownings that may have been linked to self-harm.

John Leech, chief executive of Irish Water Safety (IWS), was commenting following 10 drownings during January, “the majority of which appear to be through self-harm”.

However, neither the number of drownings, nor the number of drowning deaths which may be suicides, are particularly out of step with comparable figures for other years.