Suicide strategy - Government must build on Harney plan

MORE than two decades after Ireland’s appalling crisis of suicide came to light, a national office to co-ordinate the fight against this terrible problem is finally being established.

That it has taken so long speaks volumes about the abject failure of government to meaningfully address one of the worst suicide epidemics in Europe.

Tragically, while the measures unveiled yesterday by Health Minister and Tánaiste Mary Harney deserve to be welcomed, they come too late for thousands who have taken their own lives over the past 25 years or so.

By any yardstick, the statistics make for depressing reading. The annual suicide toll is now greater than the carnage on Ireland’s roads. That alone is a damning indictment of a Government which has put more emphasis on platitudes than action.

As illustrated by the Irish Examiner series, suicide claims hundreds lives annually, devastating families and profoundly affecting communities across the country.

Around 11,000 people every year contemplate suicide and many become self harm victims. Tragically, almost 500 go on to take their own lives.

Unfortunately, Ireland now claims Europe’s second highest level of suicide among young males. Among males aged 15 to 24 years, it is the main cause of death.

The reluctance of young men to seek help, combined with the relentless rise in alcohol consumption are disturbing aspects of this nationwide crisis.

With growing numbers of children and adolescents struggling to cope with depression, reliable estimates suggest that 20% suffer psychological disturbance.

Distressed young people, many of them girls in their late teens and early 20s, regularly seek counselling because of domestic violence, bullying, parental separation or difficult relationships. Although many attempt suicide, the overburdened psychiatric services continue to be the Cinderella of the health system.

Instead of being fast-tracked for treatment, most suicide patients have to wait weeks to be seen at an outpatients department and often end up in an overstretched A&E unit, the worst place for anyone bent on taking their own life. Now at epidemic proportions, suicide remains a hidden tragedy because of its social stigma.

Though Fianna Fáil has been in power for most of the past 20 years, the country’s biggest political party has failed miserably to address this scourge. Virtually no recommendations from the 1998 task force report have been implemented.

Calls by a Government working group for in-patient beds for children and adolescents to be increased dramatically have fallen on deaf ears. Though seven units with 144 beds are needed, there are only 20 beds in two units at Dublin and Galway.

Lacking numerical targets, the national strategy is primarily aimed at young men, prisoners and the unemployed. Thankfully, new services to treat deliberate self-harm are to be developed in hospital A&E departments.

Welcoming the development, both the Ombudsman for Children and the National Youth Council stressed the importance of promoting positive mental health among young people.

From a health budget of €12 billion, a paltry sum is devoted to combating this dreadful phenomenon. Yet the direct, indirect and human cost of suicide and attempted self-harm amounts to over €864 million a year.

Hopefully, the Tánaiste’s promise of action not words will result in more realistic funding in future to tackle Ireland’s never-ending tragedy of suicide.