Usually, as an emerging problem is perceived, the tendency in seeking an answer is to focus on the particular factors which suggest a specific pattern of difficulty rather than looking at the more general picture. For example, if a particular type of aircraft is involved in more than one crash over a short period of time, the response will be to have all such aircraft pulled in and rigorously checked for faults specific to them.
If, for example, two or more jumbo jets go down in circumstances which invite comparison, the response will almost certainly focus on jumbo jets. Never, in such circumstances, will there be suggestions that all aircraft be grounded, or that the safety of air travel generally be brought into question.
And yet, when it comes to the subject of suicide, the glaring specifics are invariably overlooked, while all relevant bodies and institutions seek a generalised answer as though to allow the specifics to be ignored. Last week's provisional figures released by the Central Statistics Office indicated that the final total for suicides in 1998 may, for the first time, exceed 500. The headline on The Irish Times report on Thursday read: "Suicide figure for last year is expected to be higher than 500." This prospect is certainly worrying but it is by no means the most shocking aspect of the statistics.
In the first nine months of last year, there were 359 recorded deaths from suicide, 293 males and 66 females. In 1997, there were 433 suicide deaths, of which 355 were male, 78 female. Consistently, the level of suicide by men runs at about 80 per cent of the total. In the third quarter of last year, the most recent period for which figures are available, male suicides represented 88 per cent of the total: 105 out of 119 suicides, or eight out of every nine, were by men. By any standards, this is profoundly newsworthy. I have no doubt that, if the preponderance of victims had been female, this aspect would have been heavily highlighted in the presentation of these statistics. But, in The Irish Times report, as in so many reports on this subject in all media in recent years, this aspect of the story was barely alluded to.
In fact, while overall suicide rates have again been showing a gradual increase, the (on balance unlikely) possibility that the final figure for 1998 will exceed 500 would not be surprising to anyone who has been observing these trends for any length of time. The assertion, for example, in The Irish Times report that " . . . the number of people taking their lives has doubled in little over a decade" gives a somewhat false impression of the overall picture.
Following steep rises through the 1970s and 1980s, and the introduction of more exacting recording and statistic-gathering standards to avoid under-reporting, the overall suicide rate was seen to remain more or less constant since the start of the 1990s. Speaking at St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin in March 1990, the late Dr Michael J. Kelleher, an eminent specialist in suicide issues, estimated the true rate of suicide to be "about 400 each year". Thus, the 1997 figure is within the bounds of what might have been expected, with the final 1998 figure likely to be somewhat but not remarkably higher.
The most sensational news story here, however, resides in the shocking increase in suicides by men, particularly young men. Since 1990, there has been a fourfold increase in the number of deaths by suicide of men under the age of 25. Suicide now kills more young men, especially in the 15-29 agegroup, than accident or disease. In some categories, male suicide now outnumbers female suicide by a factor of 10 to one.
It should be obvious then that any discussion on this subject should be clearly focused on the fact that young men are killing themselves in ever greater numbers. This is where the main problem is, and it is getting worse. And yet, there appears to be an unwritten understanding that all those who make mention of it will seek to define the issue in almost any other conceivable terms. When politicians, clerics, journalists, youth groups or even specialists in the subject come to pronounce in public on this issue, the elephant in the room - or the jumbo jet protruding from under the stairs - is almost invariably ignored. Yes, in the listing of relevant statistics, the fact that there are more suicides by males than females will receive an understated mention. But then the discussion will move on as though this was a minor and somewhat irrelevant quirk of the statistics. Sometimes concern is couched in terms which imply that this issue is one affecting primarily "young people". The major issue with which we have a right to be concerned, however, is not suicide per se, or even suicide by "young people" but suicide by men, especially young men.
Why is this so difficult? Doesn't it matter? Isn't it worth talking about? For parents of young sons, those with brothers, nephews, and young male cousins or friends, this should be a source of deep concern. And it should be a source of even deeper concern that this society seeks to brush this already hidden pain and suffering even further under the carpet.
The reason for this reticence, of course, is that scrutiny or even mention of this issue in its correct perspective would require the re-examination of one of the most central elements of the ideology which now governs our society: the belief that only women feel. It is therefore ideologically inconvenient to have to go back to basics in the manner the suicide issue demands.
One of the most telling indicators is the fact that it has become standard in the media and other public discussion of suicide to deal broadly with the subject by treating as synonymous two issues generally regarded by specialists as separate and distinct.
Suicide, as those who deal with it are well aware, is a different phenomenon to what is termed parasuicide or attempted suicide. In general, parasuicide - the unsuccessful attempt to kill oneself - is a female phenomenon. Men who attempt to kill themselves rarely fail. It might therefore be interpreted that many more women than men attempt suicide but more men succeed. If you deal with the issue by assuming that the two syndromes are connected, the problem suggests itself as being gender-neutral and this idea is one the present ideology finds convenient.
But if you perceive the two as quite distinct phenomena - attempted suicide as a cry for help uttered in the hope or certainty that help will be forthcoming and suicide as an act of final and utter despair - then you are faced with the prospect of having to look sympathetically at men and this is not something we are at all disposed to do.
Suicide is one area of male domination this society does not want to talk about.