The President, Mrs McAleese, paid tribute yesterday to the work of Victim Support at a rally at Aras an Uachtarain to mark European Victims' Week.
"Those who have been victims of crime know well how profoundly traumatic the experience and its aftermath can be," the President told her audience of more than 200 volunteers. "Crimes which may seem relatively minor to some, have a capacity to skew a life, throw it out of kilter and leave a lasting psychological scar."
Criminality, she added, weakened our civil life, "adding layers of utterly unnecessary stress and worry" to the lives of everyone. "When an elderly lady is mugged in our parish, everyone feels the unease that follows. When a teenager is bullied and harassed on his way home from a disco or youth club, every parent wonders whether their child will arrive safely home."
Victim Support is a voluntary organisation established by the Government in 1985 to offer emotional support and practical help to victims of crime. Help is offered through a network of branches throughout the country - and also through the Witness Support Programme based at the Four Courts, the Families of Murder Victims Programme and Tourist Victim Support. It also runs a 24-hour helpline service.
The organisation's chief executive, Ms Lillian McGovern, said that while there had been a decrease in the number of burglaries and petty crime, the increase in the level of serious crime was worrying. More recently the Victim Support volunteers were having to deal with cases of child sexual abuse, which had never been part of the organisation's brief before.
In addition, "the number of families we work with following a murder increased by 75 per cent last year", said Ms McGovern. These trends showed that people needed help desperately and were willing to look for it.
The rally at Aras an Uachtarain was not an isolated incident, she stressed: "We're only one of 17 victim support organisations who work as part of a network right around Europe. We meet on a European basis to discuss issues of common concern."