Dan Neville
Question:127 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason he has reduced the funding provided in 2003 towards suicide prevention and research to ?665,000 from ?1.11 million which was provided in 2003. [17559/03]
Written Answers. - Departmental Funding.
The level of expenditure on suicide prevention programmes has not been reduced this year. The total funding provided for suicide prevention programmes and towards research projects has been increased this year by the provision of an additional €655,000 in revenue funding. It is important to bear in mind that additional funding allocated to a service in one year becomes part of the base-line funding for that service in subsequent years. Therefore, since the publication of the report of the task force on suicide in 1998, a cumulative total of more than €13 million in additional funding has been provided towards suicide prevention and towards research aimed at improving understanding of this issue. The Government is fully committed to the intensification of suicide prevention initiatives as resources become available.