The Minister for Mental Health has said the guidelines for reporting on suicide need to be strengthened.

Kathleen Lynch made the comments at the launch of Samaritans Ireland Impact Report for 2012, which reveals a 3% increase in the number of calls to the helpline in the past year. 1 in 6 of them related to the recession, up from 1 in 10 in 2011.

Minister Lynch said she is "hugely concerned" about the coverage of suicide in the media - after two Donegal sisters Erin and Shannon Gallagher took their own lives within weeks of each other this year.

She said the coverage doesn't "glamorise" suicide, but reports go into "unnecessary detail" and need to be more respectful. She also said the code of conduct on reporting on suicide needs to be examined and strengthened.

Contagion suicide

Speaking at the same event, the Executive Director of Samaritans Ireland Suzanne Costello said new media guidelines will be published next year, focusing entirely on "contagion" or "copycat" suicides. She also said young people don't always understand the finality of suicide and need to be protected from reporting which "romanticises" the issue.