Press Release: Thursday 4 December 2025
Minister Butler welcomes decline in number of people presenting to Emergency Departments with self-harm
The Minister for Mental Health and Government Chief Whip, Mary Butler TD, has today welcomed the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland report for 2024, which shows a continued decrease in the number of people presenting to Irish Emergency Departments having self-harmed.
In 2024, the National Self-Harm Registry Ireland estimated that there was a total of 12,621 self-harm presentations made by 9,436 individuals. The estimated age-standardised rate of individuals presenting to hospital following self-harm in 2024 was 181 per 100,000. This is 5% lower than the rate in 2023, and 19% lower than the peak rate recorded by the Registry in 2010 (223 per 100,000).
Reflecting on the findings of the report, Minister Butler stated:
“A reduced rate of hospital-presenting self-harm was one of the two primary goals of Ireland’s National Suicide Reduction Strategy 2015-2024, Connecting for Life. I am pleased that experts at the National Suicide Research Foundation have concluded that this goal has been achieved. I look forward to continuing to build on this good work with our forthcoming suicide and self-harm reduction strategy.
“I would like to acknowledge the work of the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention, the National Suicide Research Foundation and the HSE’s Self-Harm and Suicide-related Ideation National Clinical Programme in ensuring we are providing evidence-based responses and support to anyone who presents to our health service in distress.
“It is essential that anyone who does present to an Emergency Department in distress is met with empathetic and timely support. As part of the €15 million new funding allocated to crisis supports and suicide prevention in Budget 2026, we will enhance the capacity of our Emergency Departments to support people out-of-hours through specialist nursing teams. We will also focus on supporting people who self-harm and do not present to Emergency Departments with enhanced community support.”