Official figures mask real scale of suicide crisis

Date Published: 20-Apr-2011

A suicide support group has claimed that official statistics for suicide in the county ARE well short of the reality – and that the stress of our economic downturn has meant that the past few months have been their busiest since they were set up almost a decade ago.

Paul Kelly, CEO and founder of Console, said that the current recession is taking its toll on people and that some people are on the verge of suicide.

Console, which offers support to people traumatised by suicide recently opened a helpline to people having suicidal thoughts.

Mr Kelly said that in recent months calls to this helpline had increased by 13%; many of the callers were people affected by the recession.

“Just this morning I took a call from a woman whose house was being possessed. Many of the people calling us are being affected one way or the other by the economic crisis.

“And it is not just anecdotal. The statistics show that suicide rates have increased in this country.”

Figures given to a meeting of the HSE West Regional Forum last week showed that suicide rates in Galway was below the national average with10.3 in every 100,000 deaths recorded as suicide in 2007.

But Mr Kelly said that these figures were old and that Central Statistic Office figures showed suicide had increased since then.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.