An emergency distress line is to be set up aimed at cutting suicide levels in North Belfast.
The decision was made during a crisis meeting at a health centre in the Ardoyne area to discuss the weekend suicide of a teenager just hours after he helped to bury his best friend.
During the meeting it was decided to put a counselling service and phone number in place for young people who need to talk to someone.
Father Aidan Troy of Holy Cross Parish said this was a temporary measure and a more co-ordinated strategy would be set in motion to deal with the spiralling problem of teen suicides.
"A counselling service will be put in place from tonight onwards," he said
"There will be a number of people contactable should young people feel the need to speak to somebody confidentially."
On Saturday, Father Troy gave the last rites to Bernard Cairns (18) whose body was discovered in the tower of Holy Cross Church.
Earlier, the teenager had attended the funeral of his friend Anthony O'Neill who took his own life last week.
It emerged that both youths had been the victims of republican paramilitary punishment squads.
Father Troy tonight called on the organisation involved, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) to publicly declare that no more young people in Ardoyne would be under threat.
He offered to meet the group to discuss the issue: "It is too serious for me to play precious. I will go anywhere at anytime if I can get some resolution to this."
But a spokesman for the INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, said he did not believe the paramilitary group was responsible for the two young men's deaths.
Since the beginning of this year, 13 people have taken their lives in nationalist areas of North Belfast.
PA