Children’s calls for help distressing

IT MUST be heart-rending for volunteers manning the Childline telephone service, run by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to take a call from a distressed child saying that Santa Claus has not come, because this is usually an indication that parents are misusing drink or illegal drugs.

Childline answered 678 calls from anxious children on Christmas Day.

Although 30 volunteers manned the telephone lines, many children were not able to get through, because all the lines were busy.

A number of parents — abusing alcohol or other drugs — left their children at home alone, but other children called distressed by their own substance abuse. In a number of instances children called while left in one room as their parents were drinking or arguing in another room.

Although the volume of calls has increased dramatically over the last few years, this is not a result of an increase in the number of calls so much as evidence that more calls are getting through, due to the increase in the number of volunteers manning the telephones.

Yet there is still a further need to expand this important service.

Some children in foster or residential care called in distress, because they were lonely, as their parents had split up.

Such problems are an unfortunate result of cultural changes, as well as part of the downside of our current affluence. People have more money than ever for alcohol, and social changes mean that there is now more drinking at home.

It is particularly sad that children would have this festive time of year destroyed by such problems.

We need to recognise the implications that this abuse of drink in the home could have on society as a whole.