Mr. Niall Mulligan:

I thank the Deputy for her question. The partnership with ALONE came about because we were aware from our conversations with it, as well as from seeing some social media coverage of the levels of suicidal ideation and distress that were being experienced by people who had been ringing ALONE. We reached out to ALONE to see if there was anything that we could do to help it. The partnership with ALONE is twofold. First, while some of our volunteers were cocooning, they could do some volunteering with ALONE because they could work and volunteer from home. That was not an option within the Samaritans. We came to an arrangement with ALONE.

The second part was in relation to some individuals who had been ringing ALONE volunteers, and who were under severe distress. We entered into a memorandum of understanding, MoU, between ALONE and the Dublin Samaritans branch, whereby if those individuals wanted to, they could be contacted by the Samaritans. That was a real help in terms of using our expertise and experience in the areas suicidal ideation and deep distress, so that we could support those individuals. There are lots of positives around this partnership.

The only challenges that arose were ensuring that the protocols that were set up - for instance, ALONE's protocols around confidentiality, etc. - would match with our own protocols. The challenges arose within the processes, rather than in any deep issues around value bases, or anything along those lines. Would Mr. Fitzgerald like to add to that comment?