Former US president Bill Clinton will come to Ireland next month to support a new suicide prevention programme unveiled today by Nobel Prize winner John Hume.
Mr Hume marked the RehabCare national suicide prevention programme at an event in Dublin Castle, where he released 444 balloons to mark each death from suicide in Ireland last year.
Mr Clinton will deliver a keynote address to a fundraising gala dinner in Dublin on
May 23rd. He accepted the invitation from Mr Hume, who agreed to become patron of the event after he learned about RehabCare's work on suicide prevention.
"It is an extraordinary coup for RehabCare in developing its suicide prevention service to have the support of Bill Clinton, one of the world's truly iconic figures," Mr Hume said today.
"He has already done so much for this island through his work and support for the peace process, and through his support for this new service he will again be directly helping to save the lives of Irish people."
John Hume
Official figures record 11,200 cases of attempted suicide in 2003. Some 80 per cent of the 444 people who died from suicide were men.
"That's a lot of people. And behind each of those statistics there is a story, a history, a family and a lot of love, and of course a terrible lot of tragedy," Mr Hume said. "The fact is we have a problem with death by suicide. We have a problem that needs to be tackled - and one that to date has not had a cohesive response."
"More people are dying each year by suicide than on our roads. And suicide is now the biggest cause of death among young men in the 15-24 age group. This is a national crisis and RehabCare is going to play its part in aiming to establish Ireland's first comprehensive national programme to address all of the factors driving people - particularly young people to take their own lives."
The new service aims to "support and empower" those directly at risk of suicide and those working with them in order to reduce the risk of suicide and self-harm. A number of pilot programmes will be put in place. Nationally, the service will work to reduce stigma and to heightened awareness of the programme through the media.
Tickets for next month's ball at Dublin's City West hotel will cost €5,000 for a table of ten guests.
RehabCare Chief Executive Angela Kerins said: "These stark figures only go some way towards conveying the devastation that is being caused by suicide in communities the length and breadth of Ireland.