Suicide statistics were speculative

YOUR front page report (December 12) headlined ‘Two people take own lives each day’, both from my perspective and that of the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF), contained too much speculation and did not include any systematic evidence for the statement that “up to 700 people died by suicide across the State last year”.

It was also unfortunate that the report incorrectly cited research by the NSRF which has not published findings that indicate “up to 50 suicides were not recorded last year because the relevant documentation was not filled out by the gardaí”.

In fact, the Central Statistics Office has not even published the definitive suicide statistics for 2007 based on year of occurrence. This indicates again that the figure of 700 suicides in 2007 is based on speculation only.