More than 500 people may have committed suicide in the State last year, the latest figures suggest.
Figures for the full year are likely to show that the number of people taking their lives has doubled in little over a decade.
Church leaders will tonight highlight the problem at a service in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, to mark today's World Day of the Sick, which has the theme "Hope in the Face of Suicide". While the service is organised by the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, Archbishop Desmond Connell will be joined by Archbishop Walton Empey, of the Church of Ireland.
Provisional figures from the Central Statistics Office show that 433 people took their lives in 1997. Of these deaths, 306 were registered in the first nine months of the year.
In the first nine months of 1998, 359 suicides were registered. If that trend continues in the final quarter, the toll for the full year will be more than 500 people.
According to Mr Mike Watts, of the mental health organisation Grow, every parish and town has had to cope with suicide in recent years. In the major cities and towns, "somebody is taken out of the river every week".
About one-quarter of the dead are young people. According to a statement from the Archdiocese of Dublin, "Ireland has the fastest-growing rate of youth suicide in the world, and almost one in four suicides occur among those aged between 15 and 24."
Of the 433 suicides recorded in 1997, most were men.
Mr Watts, who speaks at schools on mental health, said he had been contacted by one school which had seven suicides over a short number of years. He knew of another which had four in a short period.
A report last year from the Eastern Health Board on its childcare services referred to a study which "found that 15 per cent of boys thought their lives were not worth living most of the time and 18 per cent thought their lives were not worth living sometimes."
Dr John Connolly, honorary secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology, said there was a need to develop more support groups for families bereaved by suicide. Suitable training should also be provided for professionals and others dealing with suicide.
He said the media, when reporting on suicide, could help by saying where bereaved people could get support. This would also help to de-romanticise suicide. "What very often doesn't come across is the awfulness of it and the hurt it causes, the pain and agony of it all."
Father Pat O'Donoghue, who devised the liturgy for tonight's service in St Patrick's College, said: "Our aim is to remember those who have taken their own lives, comfort and console their families and friends and offer the light of hope to those who might consider suicide."
The service begins at 8 p.m.