Calls to Dublin Rape Crisis Centre increase by a third in a year

The number of contacts to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s national helpline increased by more than a third last year compared with 2021, with a “marked rise” in mental health crises and suicidal ideation among callers.

Its annual report, published on Thursday, shows however that the number of therapy sessions the centre could provide fell from 580 to 551, as the centre lost four counsellors amid “restricted funding” leading to “recruitment difficulties”.

This was particularly due to “less favourable terms and conditions” non-statutory services are able to offer compared with those in the public sector – a situation that is “not reasonable”, says the report. A sector-wide strike on this issue, due to happen on Tuesday, was averted as proposals to address it were published.

The 2022 report, which comes as chief executive Noeline Blackwell steps down after seven years, states there were 18,400 contacts with the helpline – a 31 per cent increase on 2021, when there were 14,012.

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Commenting on the sharp increase after Covid, Ms Blackwell said: “Domestic violence and sexual violence, although they are allied, they report very, very differently.

“People report domestic violence in real time. But sexual violence is still reported in arrears. During the worst of the lockdown our phones were not busy. They became much busier in 2022, which I put down to Covid being over. People reporting sexual violence either didn’t have the space to do it or they were ashamed, perhaps that they had been at a party where they weren’t meant to be.

“Around the world, during Covid, sexual violence gets reported late ... The trauma is real and sometimes people feel they have to carry it, I think, more than they do with domestic violence. They still believe people won’t believe them or they say it was their own fault.”

[ Retiring head of rape crisis centre says ‘we still have a long way to go’ on attitudes towards sexual violence ]

Where indicated, 70 per cent (9,285) of people were contacting the helpline for the first time, compared with about half of contacts in 2021.

“As in previous years, most contacts related to rape as an adult (42.2 per cent) followed by child sexual abuse (30.6 per cent) and sexual assault as an adult (13.9 per cent),” says the report.

The large majority (84 per cent) were female contacts, with 15.7 per cent male and 0.3 per cent other. About 60 per cent were from Dublin with the remaining outside the capital. Most callers were Irish (87 per cent). Overall,,callers identified 64 different countries of origin.

The ages of contacts ranged from under 16 to over 80.The largest cohort was 18-23 year-olds (20 per cent) followed by 40-49 year-olds (19 per cent).

“Continuing the trend of recent years, there has been a marked rise in calls to the helpline from people experiencing a crisis in their mental health.

“There has also been a rise in people expressing suicidal ideation, with some callers expressing elevated anxiety about the future. This has led to longer, more complex calls. In some cases, callers are managing symptoms through abuse of alcohol or other substances.”

[ Dublin Rape Crisis Centre launches online guide for sexual violence victims ]

There were surges in contacts around the time of the death of teacher Ashling Murphy in January, and later in 2022 following revelations about historical abuse in fee-paying schools.

Recruitment of specialist therapists “proved extremely challenging ... with greater competition from State and other services for skilled psychotherapists. This was especially concerning as the number of therapists declined over the year from 15 to 11,” says the report.

“We will continue to challenge Government to recognise that they ask us to deliver outcomes that they recognise are necessary but fail to recognise that it is not reasonable to ask us to deliver these on less favourable terms and conditions than they award people who are in the public sector.”