Effective suicide strategy long overdue

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 15th Oct 2005

Young Alliance has called for an effective suicide strategy combining both work on prevention of suicide and self-harm, and work helping people to cope with the aftermath.

Speaking after a meeting of the Good Relations Development Group in Holywood, Cllr Ian James Parsley, Chair of the Alliance Party's youth wing, stated:

"People's attention has to be drawn to the growing rates of self-harm and suicide in Northern Ireland, particularly among young people. Although the ideal obviously is to allocate funding and resources to prevention in the first place, we also need to consider the aftermath for families and loved ones of those affected.

"Only this week in North Down we had a special meeting to discuss lack of resources in the Health Service, and we are also dealing with budget cuts in education. But we are not calling for allocation of new resources, we are calling for an effective Suicide Strategy that targets existing resources more effectively. The Minister for Health, Shaun Woodward, has already pledged funding for such a strategy, but we need action right now.

"I commend those already giving up their time voluntarily to assist work in this area. I would also call on so-called 'peace money' to be diverted to give extra emphasis to such work, developing from such a strategy. It is clear to me that these projects deserve significantly more assistance than the token projects to which such funds are too often given."

ENDS