Rape Crisis Network Ireland has said there was a 98% increase in the number of contacts made by people seeking counselling and support during the three months of lockdown measures.
For the same period in 2019, 647 people contacted the services, but this year for March to June there were 1,284 contacts. The research was gathered from six rape crisis centres during the Covid stay-at-home period, March-June of this year, and compared to the same period in 2019.
There was also an increase of 83% in the length of time spent on calls made to rape crisis centre helplines. Elaine Mears, RCNI's Data and Privacy Co-ordinator said: "Where previously helpline contacts may have been just a few minutes, now they were lasting over 30 minutes, with calls