Mr. Rory Fitzgerald:

As I said, our branches cost €1.3 million to run each year and that will become a challenge in the years ahead. We may need some support in that regard. What that support may involve I do not know. I suppose we are here to tell our story. While Mr. Mulligan said that people are aware of us, at the same time some people hear the word “Samaritans” and ask if we are a homeless charity or something like that. They might not know exactly what it is that we do. Therefore, we constantly want to get our message out there because our story is not a sexy one which will get onto all the high-profile programmes. It is an important story, though, and one that we must make everyone aware of.

Funnily enough, I did an interview on one of the radio channels during the year and afterwards a friend of mine, an intelligent man, said that was the first time that he knew what we did. While our telephone number is flashed up on every programme when there is a crisis or whatever, we still need to get our message out there and to get the right people to ring us. Again, there are cohorts of people, such as middle-aged men and young people in college, who may be struggling. We must get our message out that we are there for them when nobody else is, through the night or whatever the case may be.

That is important. On the issue of loneliness, I do not know the solution. There are 400,000 people in Ireland living alone. An awful lot of people living with somebody are still lonely. One does not have to be living alone to be lonely. As the saying goes, you can be in a crowded room and still be lonely. As mentioned by Ms Stack, we get an awful lot of calls early in the morning from people just wanting to hear a voice, who probably will not hear another voice all day. It is a societal issue as to how that can be supported in local communities and activities. The people who are struggling will probably not go to an activity. I do not know how we can help them other than to be there to at least give them another voice and to support them through the day.