Breaking the taboo can ease grief

Though it accounts for more deaths than road traffic accidents every year, suicide is, perversely, still a subject which evinces an ambivalent attitude in Irish society.

With 500 suicide deaths in this country annually, and 10,000 suicide attempts, its impact on families is broader than road traffic fatalities, yet it is not a subject of public education through campaigns, as is the latter.

Since 1998, each health board has received an average of €300,000 a year to fund suicide research and prevention programmes. In contrast, €17 million was allocated to road death prevention campaigns this year.