A leading expert on suicide has criticised the Government for spending a "very paltry" €1.85 million on suicide prevention this year.
Speaking at the opening of Pieta House, a voluntary project based in Lucan, Co Dublin, which will provide intensive counselling free to those affected by suicide and self-harm, Dr John Connolly again noted that more people die in the State by suicide than are killed on the roads.
Dr Connolly, secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology and medical adviser to Pieta House, said if there was as much investment in suicide prevention as there was in road safety "we might make great strides in making our society a lot better to live in".
"We know, for instance, that there is too little being spent on suicide prevention . . .There's over £18 million ring-fenced in Scotland for suicide prevention; that's not happening here, [ where] the allocation this year is going to be €1.85 million, which is really a very paltry sum."
He added that the establishment of Pieta House was "a very important advance" in the development of services in the area. "Pieta House provides a sophisticated, focused counselling service which is readily accessible to those in need. It is a first step in the development of what must become a national service."
Speaking at the opening, Minister for Health Mary Harney said she hoped the establishment of the State's first centre for the prevention of suicide and self-harm could be a model to be followed elsewhere.
"It's the kind of project I'd like to see in other places as well, where there's a huge voluntary input supported by the HSE."
Pieta House is funded mainly from borrowings, fundraising and donations from the ESB and the National Lottery, with less than 10 per cent being contributed by the Health Service Executive.
The centre employs 12 psychotherapists and offers intensive one-to-one therapy for people who have considered suicide or who have already attempted it.
Chief executive of Pieta House Joan Freeman said the centre would fill a gap in services for those affected by suicide and self-harm.
"The gap was if someone had attempted to take their life they probably would have gone along the psychiatric route because that's all they had. Sometimes it's not necessary for them to go the psychiatric route because they might just be reacting to a life-event, a bereavement or a separation," Ms Freeman said.
"The incidence of suicide has increased with every generation. But we are now as a nation acknowledging that we have a problem with suicide, and we also have a problem with self-harm, and self-harm still isn't spoken about.
"We should have Pieta Houses throughout the country, and hopefully we will do that some day."
The incidence of suicide in Ireland has increased dramatically in recent decades. In 1980, 216 people took their own lives, but by 2005 that figure had risen to 431. The highest ever number of suicides in one year was in 2001, when 519 people died.
There are also about 11,000 cases of self-harm presented at Irish hospitals every year. Health professionals estimate the number of cases of deliberate self-harm may be as much as six times that figure.
