(At Pieta House’s Darkness into Light fundraiser in Phoenix Park, Dublin in May)
Three reports on suicide in Ireland were published today which revealed:
The county with the highest rate of suicide is Kerry, followed by Leitrim, Cork, Westmeath and the Tipperary North area.
The counties with the lowest rates are Longford, Dublin and Donegal.
A high proportion of suicides occur on Saturdays and Mondays.
The most common method of self-harm was overdose of medication.
There were 495 deaths by suicide in 2010.
There were 12,010 deliberate self-harm presentations to hospitals by 9,483 individuals in 2012.
There was a significant decrease of 5% in the male rate of deliberate self-harm, the female rate increased by 1%.
The peak rate for self-harm for females is 15-19 years and for males is it is among those aged 20-24 years.
The Report of the Suicide Support and Information System, says that in 307 suicide cases it studied, 41% worked in the construction sector, 13% in the agricultural sector, nearly 9% were in sales, healthcare over 6% and education nearly 4%.
The presence of alcohol was confirmed for 60% of these cases.
Padraic Geoghehan writes:
Despite two successive decreases, suicide rate last year was still 12% higher than 2007
Stabilisation in suicidal behaviour – HSE report (RTE)
(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)
