Number of first-time callers to rape helpline doubles

The number of first-time callers to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre's national helpline almost doubled last year.

According to its annual report, more than 14,200 calls were received in 2009, more than 4,100 of those were from first time callers.

More than half related to childhood sexual abuse, an increase of 8% on 2008.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre is putting the rise in calls down to the publication of the Ryan Report into institutional abuse last May and the Murphy Report, into the handling of clerical abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese, last November.