Suicide statistics - What’s the true figure?

AS A society we are terrified of suicide.

We hear about it most every day and are relieved, if we are lucky enough to be able, that the tragedy has visited some other family, some other community.

Yet each of us knows families or friends who have had to deal with the anguish brought in the wake of a loved one taking their own life.

The Central Statistics Office records that last year 460 people committed suicide; 441 did so in 2006.

Pieta House, a charity dealing with suicide, suggests that those figures do not tell the full story, and that the figure is closer to 700. If they are right that’s more or less two funerals a day because of suicide.

Nobody who has not contemplated suicide can know the darkness that takes over a person before they take this final step, but what we should know is the extent of the problem.

We should have definitive, reliable figures on the real extent of the crisis, especially as our changing economic circumstances may exacerbate the dreadful situation.

If we are unable to acknowledge the extent of a problem we have little hope of confronting it effectively.