Busiest year yet for counsellors of child abuse victims

A COUNSELLING service set up by the Catholic Church in the wake of clerical child sex abuse scandals is having its busiest year so far.

Faoiseamh, a phone hotline through which victims can access help, now has more than 800 clients receiving counselling, including people resident in Britain and the US.

Service co-ordinator Bernard Kirwan said that number could rise further as first-time callers were still making contact and new requests for assistance were still coming in.

“We are still getting new clients contacting us but the rate seems to have peaked and stabilised. The number of new people coming forward this year is much the same as last year, where previously we saw an annual increase year on year.

“Where the increase is continuing is in the number of people beginning counselling for the first time. We have more new clients going into counselling than leaving it.”

Faoiseamh was set up in February 1997 amid scepticism that victims of abuse by members of religious orders would feel confident going to a service funded by religious orders. Since then, however, more than 12,000 people have made contact with the phone counsellors, about one in six has been offered referrals for face-to-face counselling, and while not all have taken up the offer, the number assigned a counsellor is more than 800.

The Conference of Religious of Ireland, which funds the service but employs independent people to run it, has spent over€6 million on the project so far, including €1.5m last year.

The service has built up a directory of counsellors in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain, while clients in the US and elsewhere are invited to have their GP suggest a practitioner.

The service has had a surge in activity every time there is a fresh wave of publicity around the subject of clerical child sex abuse. Events such as yesterday’s reports of a €325,000 settlement between the Kiltegan Fathers and a young Co Sligo man abused by Fr Peter Kennedy in the 1980s tended to cause renewed upset among victims who would often seek to talk to someone about their own experiences.

lFaoiseamh telephone counsellors are available to speak with callers on lo-call number 1800 33 1234 on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11am to 8pm and on Fridays from 11am to 4pm.