A number of teachers have told EL that there is a need for national guidelines to help them cope with suicide in their schools. Although they have no desire to take over the role of counsellors, teachers feel they need help to deal with the everyday questions that arise after a suicide.

"When you have a suicide attempt, to whom does a guidance counsellor have immediate access?" one teacher asked. "There is no one. You are told that there is a waiting list of three or six months."

Teachers have been faced with quandaries such as whether to leave a child's desk vacant after a suicide. What should they do when a student hands up a suicide note with his English essay? Should they allow students to talk about the suicide?

Suicide rates amongst males aged 15 to 24 increased from seven to 27 per 100,000 of the population between 1976 and 1997, and attempted suicide is now highest amongst females between the ages of 15 and 19, so these dilemmas are increasingly being faced. Dr John Connolly, secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology, has called for a coherent national suicide prevention strategy for schools to dispel the myths that surround the topic.

The threat of suicide is not confined to second-level schools. A teacher spoke of a suicide note which a nine-year-old girl handed up with her homework. "Three-and-a-half hours were spent trying to get a healthcare worker. At 3 p.m. that evening no one had arrived and the child had to be sent home to an extremely dysfunctional family."

The National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) makes every attempt to be immediately available in such cases, according to NEPS senior psychologist Paddy O'Dwyer. NEPS provides psychology services for the Department of Education. He pointed out that the service was still being developed and it would be 2004 before it had its full complement of 200 psychologists. At the moment, 70 psychologists are trying to provide a Statewide service.

"We don't see ourselves as being the font of all wisdom," he said. "We work in consultation with the principal and the board of management." After the Omagh bombing, the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the Ulster Teachers Union brought out When Tragedy Strikes, a manual to help schools cope with traumatic incidents. O'Dwyer agreed that a similar set of guidelines relating specifically to suicide could be helpful to all schools.

While many teachers are reluctant to speak about suicide in case it would encourage students to consider it, researchers have discounted these fears.

"We firmly believe this only exacerbates the trauma," Susanne Wenckstern, suicide prevention researcher, said.

It is better, she said, to tell children about a suicide while they were in the security and safety of the school than have them find out in the playground. Pointing to the need for national guidelines, Wenckstern said that in one case, students asked for a scholarship in the name of a student who had committed suicide.

"What message are you giving to students? Kill yourself and you get a plaque named after you. We need to be very careful not to glamorise it."