Suicide statistics – Shameful neglect is costing lives

If the statistics relating to road deaths are a matter of public concern, as they should be, then those from suicides and the frightening levels of attempted suicides, should shock people out of complacency.

Despite the fact that since 1998 nearly 3,000 people mostly young people have committed suicide, each health board has received €300,000 a year to fund suicide research and prevention programmes, in contrast to the e17 million allocated for road safety this year.

In that time, about 60,000 people, mostly women, have tried to kill themselves, according to a report compiled by the Irish Examiner and published today.