Scheme launched as suicides rise ‘400% in 15 years’

THE number of people who commit suicide has increased by 400% over the past 15 years, it emerged yesterday.

Launching a programme to tackle the problem, RehabCare chief executive Angela Kerins said the rise in the number taking their own lives was partly to do with increasingly stressful lives.

Some 444 people committed suicide in 2003. Four out of five were men aged 15 to 24.