Childline referred 131 calls to gardaí last year

Childline referred 131 calls to gardaí last year, with the helpline’s annual report also showing that it answered almost 60,000 calls about abuse and welfare issues.

The 24-hour listening service received 664,005 telephone calls last year, of which 443,449 were answered. More than 38% of the calls answered related to personal issues, while 13.5% related to abuse and welfare concerns.

National Childline manager Margie Row said the 131 referrals to gardaí came on foot of calls made to the number, and 88 written reports were then provided to the HSE.

The high rate of calls regarding issues of abuse and welfare prompted the charity to renew its plea for legislation banning the hitting of children. “If you change the legislation, you change the mindset,” Ms Row said.

“I think children are still not valued in society. There are still some people who think it is OK to hit a child who would never think it is OK to hit an adult.”

She said a ban on corporal punishment might lead to changes in behaviour in the same way that the smoking ban changed the perception of what was acceptable when it came to lighting up in a public place.

Ms Roe said any ban would have to be accompanied by parenting classes.

In addition to the huge volume of calls, Childline had 13,037 text conversations and 6,910 web engagements with children. Its website had 56,467 hits.

Mental health issues accounted for 9% of phone calls and 17.5% of online engagement, while other issues raised across both platforms included sexuality, information requests, and relationship concerns.

Ms Roe said the ‘personal life’ issues which accounted for more than a third of all contacts across phone and online covered a number of issues, from dealing with exam pressure to bullying.

“Peer pressure has always been there but it is much more of a pressure today,” Ms Roe said. “It is there at home, it is there in school.”

She said many of the calls were from repeat phoners, claiming: “If a child is going through a tough time they might ring every day for a number of months.”

As for the number of calls that are not answered, she said: “It never sits well with us that one out of three calls cannot get through the first time they contact us.”

She said many of those calls were made between 10pm and 3am, but that ‘crisis calls’ could be received at any time of the day or night, and that often, night-time contacts were because callers could not sleep due to their issues.

Ms Roe said the number of calls going unanswered had not increased in recent years despite a reduction in Childline’s resources.

Childline: 1800 666 666, or childline.ie