The 2024 suicide statistics published today in the Registrar General’s report once again highlight the NI Executive’s failure to decisively address suicide as a major public health crisis in our society. Six years into the Protect Life 2 Strategy, the rates of suicide show no sign of decreasing.

This briefing by New Script for Mental Health provides a summary of key data on suicide deaths in the Registrar General’s report, an analysis of the underlying issues and recommendations for change.

Summary of Key Points

• 290 suicides were registered in 2024, compared with 221 registered in 2023: men accounted for over 75% of deaths.

• Based on three-year rolling averages, from 2022-2024, the average number of registered deaths by suicide in 2024 increased by 8%.

• Suicide rates rose, showing no decrease in reduction of deaths under Protect Life 2 Suicide Prevention Strategy

• Deprived communities face 2.5 times higher suicide rates due to poverty, trauma, and discrimination.

• Funding cuts have forced key suicide prevention and counselling services to close.

• Protect Life 2 Suicide Prevention Strategy targets are too low, resources are not allocated in line with objective need, and key actions remain unimplemented.

• The 2025 Implementation Plan lacks timelines, measurable outcomes, KPIs, and resource clarity.

• A human-rights approach is needed, tackling inequality, homelessness, and social determinants of suicide.

• The Give 5 Rights Framework, endorsed by all six main parties, offers a clear roadmap for effective suicide prevention.

Key points / figures from 2024 report

• Tragically, there were 290 registered deaths due to suicide (including self-inflicted injury and events of undetermined intent) in Northern Ireland, compared with 221 registered in 2023. 

• Males accounted for over three quarters of all deaths due to suicide (230)

• Based on three-year rolling averages[1], from 2022-2024, the average number of registered deaths by suicide in 2024 increased by 8%.

Deprived communities are bearing the brunt of this crisis, with rates of suicide estimated to be  two and a half higher in these communities. The causes of suicide are complex, but we know that a number of factors, including trauma, abuse, poverty, unemployment, and discrimination increase the risk of death by suicide.

Inexplicably, in recent months we have seen a number of vital suicide prevention and/or counselling organisations forced to close their doors due to withdrawal of funding.

The failure to adequately resource suicide prevention is having devastating consequences right across Northern Ireland. Local communities are stretched beyond capacity, trying to prevent further deaths, provide support to bereaved families and educate communities on effective suicide prevention measures. Inexplicably, in recent months we have seen a number of vital suicide prevention and/or counselling organisations forced to close their doors due to withdrawal of funding.

A Deliverability review into the 10 year Mental Health Strategy found that only a fraction of that Strategy had been funded or actioned by the NI Executive. Given the links between mental health distress and suicide, this is a further indication of the failure of the Executive to treat suicide as a major public health crisis.

New Script has consistently argued that the Protect Life 2 Strategy is fundamentally flawed, for the following reasons:

• The target set for reduction in the rate of deaths by suicide is not sufficiently ambitious. The WHO target of 10% reduction was intended as a global guide, not a ceiling , and was for the period up to 2020. Each state should develop its own target in line with its particular circumstances. Countries with significantly higher targets include Japan (30% reduction) and Switzerland (25% reduction).

• The strategy does not target objective need. It fails to target greater resources into those communities most impacted by suicide.

• Key actions including suicide prevention training for front line staff, as well as reducing access to means along the Westlink in Belfast, have not been implemented. These issues have been consistently raised by families bereaved by suicide through the New Script campaign.

The Protect Life 2 Implementation Plan, published in July 2025, has a number of serious weaknesses, including:

• A lack of timelines within the plan

• The BRAG Status Column (Blue, Red, Amber, Green) is mostly empty. 

• Many “deliverables” in the plan are ongoing activities rather than measurable outcomes.

• There is a lack of performance indicators or metrics The plan does not specify KPIs or evaluation criteria for most deliverables.

• The plan does not include costings or resource allocation. 

New Script continues to advocate for a suicide prevention strategy that is grounded in human rights – first and foremost, the right to life and the concomitant duty of the state to protect that right.

A rights-based approach is one that connects symptoms to causes. Recognising the impacts of social inequality and tackling poverty, homelessness, and discrimination in its various forms are all essential in addressing increased risk of death by suicide, especially for people living in deprived communities.

New Script has conducted an extensive community consultation on what people would like included in a New Script for Mental Health. A consistent message runs through the hundreds of responses received: the need for a variety of well-resourced, easily accessible, community-based options for healing and that provide support for those in crisis. This requires listening, responding to individual needs, and giving people the dignity, compassion and hope to which they are entitled.

This consultation informed and shaped the development of New Script’s Give 5: Steps to a Wellbeing Rights Framework. The Give 5 framework is a human rights framework, grounded in United Nations and World Health Organisation human rights standards, which sets out the essential steps the NI Executive needs to take to respect, protect and fulfil people’s right to good mental health. It is designed to sit alongside the Public Health Agency’s Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing, public health messaging that is aimed at individuals. The Give 5 framework has secured the support of all six main political parties in the NI Assembly. The Minister of Health and his Department now need to follow the lead of the Assembly parties and endorse the Give 5 Framework.

[1] Suicide death statistics and mortality statistics more generally are published by NISRA as the number of deaths registered within a calendar year, as opposed to the number of deaths that occurred in that period. This method ensures timely data but introduces a limitation to the statistics as they can be impacted by delays in procedural systems and do not enable occurrence-based analysis which may be important in informing operational and policy responses. While annual data based on the time of occurrence are accurate if enough time has lapsed, for more recent years they will be incomplete as mor registrations will follow. Most suicide deaths (98%) are registered within three years of the death occurring. Users are therefore cautioned against drawing inferences based on 1-year changes and should refer to occurrence trends based on a three-year rolling average. Source: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/review-suicide-statistics-northern-ireland