The Minister for Health has been urged to recognise suicide as an epidemic and to implement the 1998 taskforce recommendations.
Mr Dan Neville, the Fine Gael deputy spokesman on health and president of the Irish Association of Suicidology, said each year on average 450 young people took their lives, and a further 11,000 attempted to do so.
"These are figures of epidemic magnitude, yet even now the most characteristic aspect of suicide in Ireland is the wall of silence around it that allows rates to spiral," said Mr Neville.
"The suicide figures over the past 10 years indicate that something maladaptive and unhealthy is taking place, and it is time that the Department of Health took responsibility . . . Failure to act will have deadly consequences."