Abusive message on helpline `final straw'

A counselling service set up by the Catholic Hierarchy following recent child sex abuse scandals has come under attack from a group representing victims of abuse after one such victim was greeted by an abusive message on the service's telephone helpline.

Ms Christine Buckley, of the Aislinn Centre for the Healing of Institutional Abuse, said she had "huge misgivings" about the Faoiseamh service, opened three years ago with funding from the Conference of Religious of Ireland.

The incident last week whereby a victim in distress rang the helpline only to be met by a recorded message telling the caller to go away using a series of expletives was "to me the last straw", said Ms Buckley.

"Something has to be done because, for survivors, this is the only means of getting help."

Faoiseamh's administrator, Ms Dorrie Mitchell, said the incident resulted from a security glitch. "Someone from outside managed to infiltrate the message on our machine. This has happened once before and we have been on to Eircom and the Garda. We have also been on to the manufacturers [of the machine] and they said it was possible."

But Ms Buckley said she was unhappy with the explanation. "If it happened before then why isn't there someone getting up in the morning to check the answering machine? And will we ever find out how many people phoned in and heard the message? This kind of thing can cause untold damage."

The man who reported the message to Ms Buckley had phoned the service last Wednesday morning. He was so upset by it that he drove to Dublin from his home in the west of Ireland to complain in person to Faoiseamh.

Ms Mitchell said she had checked the telephone records and was sure the man in question was the only person who would have heard the message. "I was in on Tuesday evening and everything was fine. I came in the next day and I couldn't believe what was on it [the answering machine]. It is an unfortunate incident and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again."

Asked whether she thought the service should be closed, Ms Buckley replied: "The sooner the Government honours its promise on the introduction of its counselling service the better." The Government has pledged £4 million to such a service as part of a package of measures linked to the Laffoy tribunal.

Ms Buckley said she had had some complaints from people who had used the service, who felt that they should have been offered more counselling sessions than were made available to them.

Ms Mitchell said she could not comment on any individual cases but "I can't imagine a scenario where a client's counselling would be cut short. You have to remember some people might say they were told not to come back, or that they had tried and it didn't work, and this might be their way of saying `I am not ready for counselling'."

She stressed that finances were not a consideration and counselling was provided on an "open-ended" basis. "There would be no point doing it any other way. You couldn't say we'll give you 12 sessions or whatever and that's it. You couldn't just stop. That would be more abuse."

CORI had agreed to cover all costs, she said, and if at any stage "there is a need for more money we request it and it gets paid into our funds".

She added that there were mechanisms for dealing with complaints against counsellors. "When we put a client in touch with a councillor that relationship is sacrosanct. But we say to people if they have any problems to come straight back to us and we will get another counsellor, and we have done that many times."

Since Faoiseamh was opened in February 1997, it has received 9,000 calls and has dealt with 1,500 people in face-to-face counselling, said Ms Mitchell. Up to 17 counsellors work with the service at any one time, all in a freelance capacity.

The Faoiseamh helpline can be contacted at 1800 331 234.