The week before last was probably one of the most important in the history of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and not just financially.
Yes, the organisation will receive an estimated #200,000 as a result of the BT Fashion Show and Childline Concerts but equally important is the success of such ventures on a symbolic level, particularly after a year that saw the ISPCC steeped in controversy and the resignation of former Chief Executive Cian O Tighearnaigh.
Serious questions were raised about the ISPCC, which its new Chief Executive, Paul Gilligan, believes the time is right to address.

Joe Jackson: Can all the people who give cash to the ISPCC be sure their money is, ultimately, benefiting children? There probably is that lingering perception that cash collected is being, let s say, re-routed.
Paul Gilligan: It is important for me to state, on-the-record, that there is no evidence that any money was re-routed. Even so, as a result of all those allegations we did bring in consultants that looked at our internal control systems and all their recommendations have been implemented. For example, money goes into a bucket, that money is counted with more than one person present, is recorded and lodged as quickly as possible. With checks and balances all along the way that involve far more than just two people. And we are in the process of attributing costs to every project so we ll soon be able to know exactly where the money goes.
Yet I do agree that the public needs to be reassured after all the issues that did come to light over the past year. But over the past three months there really have been efforts made by the society to ensure there is accountability and transparency. We do see ourselves now almost as a public body. In the sense that, yes, if somebody puts a pound in a tin we need to be able to show them that pound has gone, ultimately, to the kids. We are funded by the public, to perform that service.
Another accusation levelled at the ISPCC was that when it came to fund-raising, staff and volunteers were told that if their individual input to a campaign didn t reach a certain level they were of no use to the organisation.
The ISPCC is, at maximum, 15% funded by the Statutory Services. The rest of our income is fund-raised. And a few years back we did introduce the concept that staff and volunteers would get involved in fund-raising, The difficulty was that, in 97, we then introduced a Limited Draw and, to ensure it was successful, said people needed to sell a certain amount of tickets. That, in itself, wasn t the problem. But, yes, people also were being told if you don t sell that amount of tickets you can t be involved in the ISPCC . In 50/50 hindsight we now see that was extreme. And a big mistake on our behalf. We were overly-eager to raise money to maintain our services and forgot that people who could give their time to services and not fund raise only were also valuable to us. So we said we re sorry and have invited anybody who left, because of that situation, to come back into the organisation. We also removed the obligation to fund raise initiated an internal commission to look at, and listen to, what volunteers have to say and have introduced a support system for volunteers. But the point is that most of the criticisms that were levelled at us in the past year did revolve around procedures and internal structures as opposed to being against the overall ethos of the ISPCC.
There were some commentators who did question the core ethos of Childline. It was argued that some volunteers were ill-equipped to handle the calls they receive and that their training was inadequate. It was also said that the ISPCC referrals to health-boards and to the Gardam were minimal and that you even made up the number of calls Childline receives.
(Angrily) It did even get to that level, that we were falsifying the number of phone calls. But if the ISPCC came out in the morning and made a similar claim about another organisation wouldn t we be expected to back such an accusation with cold hard facts? Yet certain people just tossed those accusations out, backed by no facts at all. Let s face facts here. Childline call figures are based on our own manual and computerised logging systems and Telecom would tell exactly the number of calls we got! Yet these were the very accusations the staff, volunteers and children who phone childline probably found most hurtful. And the saddest thing for us and the thing that left us most vulnerable was that it was hard to defend Childline when we were trying to defend so many other things at the same time. But we have gone back and taken-on-board what we now see were valid criticisms.
What, then, is your response to the criticism of volunteers?
That issue strikes at the very heart of the concept that people who aren t professionally trained can do something for children. What is the point of having a voluntary organisation? A voluntary organisation is a group of people who come together and say, we, as citizens of this country, although we have no professional training, can help children. That s the concept. That s why the ISPCC is here. It s run by people like Lieutenant General Gerry O Sullivan and Mary Bennett, good citizens. Have they something valuable to give kids? The answer has to be a resounding yes! The second thing is, what is Childline itself providing? One of the main reasons, I believe, it has been criticised is that there is a misunderstanding based on what children s needs are.
First and foremost we ve got to provide a service that is directly accessible for children whereby people listen, and not specifically for children with problems. Research shows that children with problems are less likely to go to adults because they re worried adults will over-react. Secondly, children negotiate, on their own terms, with the people they do go to. And if they feel listened to, and valued, they will build up a relationship with those people around all kinds of conversations. So Childline operates on the principle that children need to be listened to and that they can talk about anything they want. It s a listening service for kids. Fundamentally. And a first-step help option for kids who find themselves in trouble. But you don t have to have a problem to use it. And the power remains with the child.
But would volunteers be able to cope if a child who started out simply wanting to talk suddenly turned out to be troubled, maybe abused?
The profile of a Childline volunteer can be anybody from a housewife of fifty, to a student. But let s shift the focus, for a moment, to the Samaritans. Can a volunteer, in the Samaritans, who s been selected by interview and trained in listening skills and understanding peoples needs, provide a valuable service to someone in distress? Or do you need a psychiatrist on the end of the line? The answer for me, at a psychological level because I am a psychologist is that absolutely they can. The same applies to Childline. And I would also point out that our training has been used by organisations in the UK. In fact, we are involved, on an International level, with trying to establish an International Quality Standards Procedure for Helplines. Not only that. We ve been involved, with childlines all over the world, in trying to develop these guidelines and have our training accredited, for the past six years.
As for the question of a child who phones and may have been abused, yes, volunteers are trained to know when they have reached the boundaries of their own capabilities. Then they seek other help options for the child. For example, if a child has built up a relationship with a volunteer and finally says look, I m going to tell you my name and where I live and this is what is happening to me, I need help that volunteer will then, immediately, refer the child onwards. And we do have a policy of mandatory reporting in the ISPCC. Because we realise the services we provide, in many cases, are not enough and that some cases must be passed on to the social workers and the Gardam.
Let me get this clear. When children first phone Childline they are told not to give their names, where they live, anything that could identify them, right?
Yes. We say if you tell me your name, where you re phoning from and I feel you are in serious trouble I will have to refer that situation on. But let s look at the criticism that the number of referrals the health boards received from the ISPCC were minimal. Many kids when we tell them there is mandatory referral say whoa, I don t want to go that far . And the point is we give children many options when they phone, say, for example can you discuss this with your parents? Or maybe a teacher? In other words, we become the catalyst for kids to contact someone who will help. Ideally, we want the kid to find their own options because that is empowering for the child. And many children who were being abused have said they took up these help options because advised to by Childline. And even if our referral rate was low which it s not, it s significant I don t see that as undermining Childline.
Either way, there has been a significant drop in the calls to Childline. During 1998 the figure was 113,734 but this was 22,324 lower than 1997. The ISPCC annual report claims 63% of that dip represents a significant decrease in children phoning the line for fun or curiosity. Cynics might say that decrease suggests Childine is failing, that fewer kids believe in the services you are offering.
And there will be another significant reduction in our next report. But any reductions in calls is not a failure. To be totally honest with you, we don t know, ultimately, why the calls dropped. We can make a hypothesis based on informed information. For one thing, the call levels are related to the number of volunteers you have on the line at any one time. But we cannot man the line all the time. Our aim is to have six lines available all the time. We cannot achieve that. Because we cannot get the volunteers. It s not necessarily related to the costs of that though, now, it looks like the answer to the problem is that we will have to employ more professional staff to man the lines volunteers can t man on their own. That s a decision we may have to take this year, which, obviously, means we need even more money. Every charity agency is finding it hard to get volunteers, because of the Celtic Tiger economy.
But there is the possibility that less kids feel the need to phone Childline which is brilliant! and there is also, yes, the possibility that kids are disillusioned with the service. Yet, even if we take only 50,000 calls a year tell me that 50,000 is a worthless figure, tell me there s no need for Childine and that someone else can run it on the budget we run it on and I ll say fine, you re right. It s a failure . I know it s not.
But, again, didn t the ISPCC add to this problem itself by, as you say, each year in press releases focusing on not just the number of abuse calls but calls, in general. Even your latest report has Childline: 11 years of service, 898,509 calls.
Yes, maybe that is another mistake. But I wouldn t want to be critical of everything we ve done. It s our job to impress upon people the huge importance Childline plays. But there are times when that kind of figure becomes almost like the profits of a company. It s like AIB made #30 million last year and Childline s figures are up.
You got #100,000 last year. How was that spent?
The premises we have Childline in is costing us #14,000 a year to lease. That will get us five or six years rent and then we re going to have to find that money from somewhere else. There s no big fund we can tap into. The Government give us nothing. People say Childline are always fund-raising somewhere but it is completely funded by the ISPCC and a lot of fund-raising is needed to maintain that service. As for the income, from, say, the Fashion Show, we receive a third of the income from that. The other two charities receiving money are Ronan Keating s Cancer group and Children of Chernobyl. We ll utilise that money to develop a project that will work with mothers and infants.
Which will be, specifically, mothers who are addicted to drugs, whose babies then are born similarly addicted to drugs?
A key component of that project will be vulnerable mothers and infants and one of those groups will be those who are drug addicted, yes. We won t supply the medical components they need but we will provide a service that will help those mothers to build a nurturing relationship with their children. The service will also cater for HIV parents and infants. Right up to helping the mother who, say, has post-natal depression. Ultimately we re hoping we ll have eight of those centres in the country and the proceeds from the Fashion Show will help us work towards that goal. But let s not forget that the ISPCC budget, overall, is #2.5 million per year. And we get #300,000 from the statutory services. So if we get hopefully! #200,000 from last weekend that still leave us with two million to raise for this year alone! Then, next year we start from scratch again. So this ongoing fund-raising really is an economic necessity. And though we have a number of sponsors such as the AIB, Eircom, Fyfe s we ll never know how many would-be sponsors might have reconsidered their position after they read all the negative press. Those people, too, need to be reassured.