Coping with suicide - Hold inquests in private

The simple, chilling fact that 10 people take their own life in Ireland every week means that there is hardly a family in the country that does not have first-hand experience of this modern tragedy, one that often has a catastrophic impact on a family’s — especially on partners or parents — emotional wellbeing, contentment, and security.

Speaking at the Console World Suicide Prevention Day Conference in Dublin yesterday, Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Kathleen Lynch, said the Government is very concerned about our suicide rate — the fourth highest in Europe. Reducing that figure is an ongoing challenge, but one of the suggestions made at the conference seems so sensible and desireable that it should be enacted almost immediately.

The suicide prevention charity Console has suggested that inquests into death by suicide be held in private to help reduce the difficulties faced by families and friends of the dead person. This is not an novel idea, as Scotland and Northern Ireland do not hold public inquests if one is not deemed to be in the public interest. Console warned that Irish inquests often seem like trials and are a legacy of the mores common time before 1993, when suicide was decriminalised. This seems an entirely appropriate suggestion — as long as it is used to protect families, but not to brush a national crisis under an already bulging carpet.