Bullying is a factor in up to 20 per cent of suicides in the State, a Galway-based clinical psychologist has claimed.
Michael Mullally, who is due to give a presentation on the effects of workplace bullying at the world congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention in Killarney this afternoon, said up to 100 people are "bullied to death" in Irish workplaces each year and it was time for the Government, trade unions and employers to sit up and take notice.
He said often the only option for people bullied at work was to leave their job because the remedies available in the State meant the bully would almost always win. He called for legislation criminalising workplace bullying.
Meanwhile, at the conference yesterday, delegates heard that half of the 800 or so drownings in the Republic in the five years up to 2005 were suicides.
Prof Kevin Malone, professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin and St Vincent's University Hospital, looked at the distribution of these deaths and compared them with accidental drownings. "The accidental drownings per head of population seemed to happen mostly along the west coast . . . When we looked at the suicide drownings a very different pattern emerged that mapped onto what I call a tale of three rivers and the three sisters," he said.
There were an excess of drownings on the Shannon, Boyne and Slaney rivers as well as on the Barrow, Nore and the Suir.
"That has implications for suicide prevention strategies . . . it would appear we need to give particular attention to these regions," he said.
"At the moment there is no message going out that we care about suicide drownings so once we are in that situation suicide drownings are going to continue . . . you've got to send the message out that communities and societies care. So for example if we got three or four terrible suicide drowning tragedies of people driving into the sea you've got to erect barriers at certain sites to make it more difficult for people to use that method. It sends a message that society cares," he said.
Prof Malone said New Zealand had a similar population to Ireland but had only six or seven suicide drownings per year. Ireland's 90 suicide drownings was "related to poor levels of swimming which therefore puts you at risk", he said.
Anyone affected by suicide can call the Samaritans on 1850 60 90 90.