Over half of all calls to Childline went unanswered last year, according to the latest figures from the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC).
Childline received 630,812 calls from children and young people in 2007 and was able to respond to 294,908 of them, up 9 per cent on the number of calls answered by staff the preceding year when 60 per cent of calls weren't answered.
The ISPCC blamed a lack of resources for its inability to answer all calls.
The ISPCC said today that 13 per cent of the calls it dealt with last year related to abuse and violence. In addition, 16 per cent of calls were connected to issues of sexuality, while 4 per cent concerned mental health issues.
In addition to contacting Childline via the phone, the helpline received 75,175 texts to its automated text service, while its "Teentext" service received 32,051 texts. The Childline website received 22,086 hits and 689 e-mails.
The number of calls answered by Childline over the past few years has grown substantially. In 2002, the helpline responded to 101,658 calls from children, equivalent to 22 per cent of all calls to the service. Last year, staff at the helpline were able to answer 47 per cent of all calls.
Nonetheless, the ISPCC said that while it is pleased at being able to respond to more callers last year, it is hoping to improve on the figures further.
The charity recently unveiled a new strategy aimed at ensuring it can answer all calls to its helpline by 2011.
