The helpline will cost approximately €4.7m a year and follows a successful pilot in north and west Belfast.

Suicide rates in Ireland, north and south, have increased by more than 25% over the last decade and it is now the biggest cause of early death amongst the young.

In 2003, 577 people died in Ireland through suicide, last year the comparable number was 645.

Welcoming the news about the new phone line, Gerry Adams, in whose west Belfast constituency suicide levels are even higher, said he was concerned that only a quarter of doctors in the North's eastern region had taken up an offer of specialist suicide training.