40 tragic suicides across five estates in two years
By Aura McMenamin
DRUG projects have been keeping a record of the number of known suicides, among people with addiction issues, across five Tallaght communities, with 40 suicides being recorded since January 2016 – four of which tragically took place in recent weeks.
Speaking with The Echo, a community drug worker stressed that these figures only highlight the number of known suicides across a small selection of Tallaght communities, and do not reflect the scale of the issue across the whole area.
The community drug worker said: “This is really serious, and these figures only cover about a quarter of the Tallaght area.
“We are recording the number of deaths to highlight the need for urgent action and are asking can we search for new models of best practice to support communities.”
The community drug worker also said that the suicides recorded mainly relate to people with drug and alcohol addiction.
The Tallaght Drugs and Alcohol Task Force met on Monday, February 5, where they knew about the four known suicides that had taken place in two weeks.
Labour councillor Mick Duff chaired the meeting. He told The Echo: “Four people in such a short space of time – it’s horrific.”
Cllr Duff said that national figures did not always reflect what drugs services and community groups on the ground were seeing.
He said: “The national figures on suicides are behind. The figures in Tallaght are substantially higher, we have a huge number of deaths in Tallaght.”
He said that suicides in Tallaght were not always ‘following a pattern’ and were across all ages and genders.
Cllr Duff said that “wonderful organisations like HOPE in Tallaght” were ‘swamped’ and said he wanted to see a better link up between drugs services, mental health services, local schools and IT Tallaght.
Sinn Fein TD Sean Crowe also attended last week’s meeting.
He told The Echo: “We need to acknowledge the crisis and do more to support people.
“We have services like HOPE, TeenLine and Pieta House that people need to realise are there, even if they aren’t always enough.”
He said that there were concerns that these suicides formed a ‘cluster’, or a number of suicides in a particular area saying: “The evidence shows that clusters of suicides in one area leads to more.”
Deputy Crowe said he would call on a taskforce to deal specifically with the spike in suicides in Tallaght, similar to what has been set up in County Cork.
If you have been affected by this piece, contact HOPE Tallaght on 087 136 3082, Samaritans on 116 123, or Pieta House in Ballyfermot on 01-6235606 or in Lucan at 01-6010000.
