Emmet Stagg
Question:11 Mr. Stagg asked the Minister for Health and Children the situation with regard to the national epidemiological study on suicides in 1997 and 1998; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22864/99]
Ceisteanna – Questions. Priority Questions. - Suicide Incidence.
The national suicide study was commissioned by the chief executive officers of the eight health boards in response to the need to determine the reasons for the increase in suicide rates in Ireland. The aims of the study are to establish the incidence and associated factors of suicide nationally in order to inform the present knowledge base on suicides and to provide information to facilitate future planning for suicide prevention programmes. The study has progressed well and is now nearing completion. Data collection has been ongoing since 1997 and, while the study period ended on 31 December 1998, the lag time to inquests meant that the field work to ascertain all the suicides continued into the latter half of 1999. Analysis of the data is due to start in the second half of this month. It is hoped that a full report with recommendations for suicide prevention will be ready by April 2000.
The Minister will agree it is worrying that suicide figures, particularly among young males, are rising steeply. The provision being made at present is simply inadequate to deal with this rate of increase. The figure is now higher than the number of deaths from road accidents. There is a particular problem with prison suicides and he will be aware of the tragic case in the past couple of days. Will the Minister agree there is a need to deal with the prison health services in a new way and to transfer responsibility for it to his Department? Does he consider that would be a practical and beneficial way to deal the urgent problem of the high incidence of young men committing suicide? Will he also agree that organisations of families—
The Deputy's time is exhausted.
I agree with the Deputy that it is only in recent times we have even been able to discuss this issue. Traditionally, there was a reluctance to discuss the issue of suicide and parasuicide, which made the compilation of data difficult. This study has progressed well and has attracted considerable support from the Garda, coroners, general medical practitioners and psychiatrists among others, and the report will be completed early next year.
The Deputy will also be aware that we have the final report of the national task force on suicide, and implementation of its recommendations is aimed at high risk groups that have been identified. I agree the incidence of suicide is seven times greater in young males than young females.
A suicide research group has been set up, whose main responsibility is to review the trends in suicide and parasucide, to co-ordinate research into suicide and make appropriate recommendations to the chief executive officers of the health boards.
The Deputy has a view on how the health services in our prisons should be dealt with. As she stated, that is not directly a matter for me. It is a policy issue as to whether it should remain with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
Will the Minister not give us a hint about that?
I am concerned about the steep increase in the incidence of suicide in people under the age of 19. Will the Minister accept there is an urgency to get to the root of this problem and, through the epidemiological study, to try to establish its causal factors. While I accept the reasons for the delay in introducing this report, I welcome the fact that it will be completed in April. Will the Minister give a commitment to publish it on receiving it in April?
I do not have a problem with that. It is in the public interest that such a report should be published and that people should be aware of this phenomenon, which all Members will agree is very worrying. I make that point in relation to the task force recommendations and the recommendations of the National Suicide Research Foundation, which was founded in 1995 by the late Dr. Kelleher. He did a good deal of great work in this area and collected much information on suicide and parasuicide prior to his death some months ago. That foundation recently put forward a proposal for a national monitoring of parasuicide.
International studies have found parasuicide to be one of the most significant risk factors associated with suicide. Those who engage in parascuide are 20 times more likely to eventually kill themselves and studies have shown that at least one-third of all suicides have a history of parasuicide. Having national information on one of the groups at highest risk of comitting suicide would contribute to Ireland's suicide prevention strategy, and that proposal is currently under consideration by the suicide research group.