Pieta House received 99,000 crisis calls and texts last year

Pieta, Ireland’s national suicide prevention charity, received over 99,000 crisis calls and texts, its Annual Report has show. 

The report for 2022 also shows that it provided over 51,300 therapy hours free of charge, and over 670 households were directly supported by Pieta’s Suicide Bereavement Liaison team. 

The report also noted high levels of young people seeking support in 2022. Pieta also emphasized the importance of reaching out to young men who may be in crisis, but are less likely to seek help. 

In response to the rising demand for its services, Pieta increased therapy hours by almost 7% in 2022, having recruited additional therapists and clinical support staff during the year. 

Stephanie Manahan, Pieta CEO, said: "To meet the ongoing demand for our services, we expanded our Clinical function to support our clients in all of our centres nationwide, and also ensured that those who cannot easily travel to one of our centres can still receive free counselling via the phone or video call.  We continued to see high levels of young people seeking our help in 2022, 36% of our clients were under 18, 56% were under 25 and 71% were under 35, so it is clear to us that young people’s mental health needs additional focus nationally.

"Furthermore, the average for the under 18 group is now just 14 years old, down from 16 years in 2020.  The majority of those who sought our help in 2022 were female (63%), underlining the need to continue reaching out to men, and younger men in particular, who may be in crisis but are less likely to seek help.  60% of our clients are deemed to be high risk, and the vast majority engaging with our services present with suicidal ideation, while 34% have already attempted suicide.  This underlines the essential nature of our services and the need for our trained clinicians to be available to support people in crisis throughout Ireland as quickly as possible.”

 “During 2022, we continued our partnership with Electric Ireland for our annual Darkness Into Light fundraiser and our Darkness Into Light committees, plus supporters, came together once again to raise an enormous amount of funding, and this was further boosted by Charlie Bird’s incredible Climb with Charlie event.  Currently, 80% of our funding comes from the generosity of the public and our corporate supporters, with the remaining 20% coming from the HSE.  We are so grateful to everyone who supports us, but in order to inject greater stability and certainty into our organisation, we believe there should be scope to increase funding from Government in order to ensure Pieta, an important component in Ireland’s mental health services, can continue to provide critical services responding to the population’s needs into the future.”

Speaking at the launch,  Minister Mary Butler said “I have always admired the work that Pieta has done. I have seen first-hand the devastation that suicide causes in so many communities and, in particular, I commend the work of Pieta’s suicide bereavement team in supporting hundreds of families every year across Ireland who have lost loved ones to suicide. Every year, since becoming minister, I have increased the funding for mental health services in this country and I will continue this support into the future.”

Pieta’s qualified counsellors specialise in suicide prevention and tackling self-harm.

The charity has centres nationwide and Pieta’s Freephone Crisis Helpline is open 24/7.

All services are provided free of charge and no referral is needed.

If you are in crisis, you can contact Pieta’s Crisis Helpline on 1800 247 247 or text HELP to 51444.