Suicide rates - Idle talk costs lives

FOR every two people who commit suicide in the North, three people take their life in the Republic.

An Institute of Public Health study of Irish suicide rates found that 25 out of every 200,000 people living in the South commit suicide. That works out at about 500 Irish people taking their own life each year.

This figure represents great tragedy and pain, for families and the individuals involved, that must be all but unbearable. Especially as those involved are so often young people with their lives ahead of them.

It is likely that our inadequate psychiatric services contribute to some of these deaths. How many of these people would be alive today if even half of the promises made about psychiatric care had been kept?