Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 5 October 2021
Joint Committee On Health
Mental Health Services: Samaritans Ireland
Mr. Rory Fitzgerald:
There is a double edge sword to that. As we said earlier, we were down 40% of our volunteers, so our capacity was well reduced. However, people were doing extra duties - two or three duties a week. Our call numbers might have been slightly down but our calls were longer and we did more hours on the phone. People needed us for a longer time than they would have pre-pandemic. We did 100,000 hours on the island and 77,000 hours in the Republic of Ireland. That is reflective of the fact there was more need among the callers whereas previously the calls were shorter.
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