Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler TD, recently launched a public consultation to inform the development of Ireland’s next suicide reduction policy.
The consultation is an opportunity for members of the public, stakeholder groups and organisations to share their experience, observations and proposals on suicide reduction in Ireland and to express what they would like to see in a new policy. The current suicide reduction strategy, Connecting for Life, is being evaluated, with a final report due in the first half of this year. The successor policy, which this new consultation process will feed into, will build on the successes of Connecting for Life and will take account of new evidence. The new policy will set out the Government’s approach to suicide reduction from 2026 onwards.
The information from the public consultation will be collated and analysed by the National Suicide Research Foundation and a report will be prepared for the Department of Health. This report will be used to inform the development of the next suicide reduction policy.
The new policy will also be based on learnings from the independent evaluation of the current policy Connecting for Life, lessons from around the world on other successful reduction strategies, and a review of the latest research on effective suicide prevention.
The closing date for the public consultation is 5pm on Friday 18 April 2025.
Minister Butler said: “Preventing the tragedy of suicide remains a priority for me and this Government and it is hugely important that we keep working to reduce suicide in Ireland. There is no greater tragedy than someone deciding that life is not worth living. In my role, I hear heart-breaking personal stories from people whose lives have been devastated by suicide. This public consultation is an important opportunity for those voices to be heard at a national level and be incorporated into our next policy to reduce suicide in Ireland.
“All experiences shared as part of this process are unique and we recognise the hugely important contribution people with lived experience of suicide bring to suicide prevention. Feedback received will inform the development of Ireland’s next suicide reduction policy and I encourage everyone to take part in the consultation process, be it online or by attending the in-person events that the Department of Health will be running in March, April and May.”
