Unanswered cries for help upset new rape crisis chief

THE Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s inability to respond to every cry for help is troubling newly-appointed chief executive Rosemary Daly.

The centre regularly closes its waiting list when it is unable to see clients within a six-month timeframe.

In her former role as administrator of the Irish Haemophilia Society, Ms Daly negotiated with five ministers for health and helped in establishing the Lindsay Tribunal.

She was also involved in securing a multi-million euro settlement for people with haemophilia who contracted HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products.

Ms Daly now leads 30 staff members and 70 volunteers who provide support and counselling to 11,808 callers who contacted the centre’s 24-hour helpline during 2002. The centre also provided professional counselling to 620 clients.

Ms Daly said she was saddened to learn that the centre couldn’t cope with the demand for counselling.

“I am saddened that is the reality I am faced with and one of my major priorities will be to see what are the barriers to providing the service,” she said yesterday.

“I want to highlight that sexual abuse is happening now and we can’t pretend that it’s not. Sexual abuse has not gone away and people are damaged and hurting.

“It’s a huge challenge from where I am sitting. Nobody really wants to discuss sexual abuse. It’s always swept under the carpet and people are just afraid to speak about it.

“There will be many people reading this who want to reach out for help but they can’t. Why can’t they? We have to find ways of making it easier for them to get help, get better and move on.”

Her experience working for the haemophilia community should help her in her new role. She is already familiar with the climate of secrecy and fear of exclusion that made it so hard for haemophiliacs whose lives have been tainted by the blood scandal to tell their story. “Some of the issues are very similar,” she said.

Her aim it to make it easier for people to feel comfortable about talking about rape and sexual abuse, but she knows it will not be easy. Getting familiar with her new job has involved reading a lot of material on sexual violence.

“What I have been reading over the past week reduced me to tears and made my stomach turn. I am absolutely horrified at the suffering going on and I just want to do something to make it better,” she said.