Samaritans volunteers are bracing themselves for a large number of calls from people in financial difficulty as the cost of Christmas hits home.
Overspending is a growing problem at Christmas, according to the support group. "We expect to get a lot of calls from people with financial problems as the problems mount up and credit-card bills arrive," said Ms Ruby Gould, the Samaritans publicity manager.
The number of callers to the help line increased by about 10 per cent over the festive period, compared with previous years. Many calls concerned loneliness, particularly from separated people, according to Ms Gould.
The organisation also noticed a major increase in the number of men calling the helpline. Ms Gould said about 80 per cent of calls over the period came from men. "That's a big change, and we welcome that because almost all callers were female when I started volunteering 11 years ago."
Many calls come from separated fathers who do not see their children on Christmas Day.
Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are usually the busiest for volunteers. "People feel lonely because they think everyone else is happy on Christmas Day but, of course, that's not the case," said Ms Gould.
"New Year's Eve is difficult because it brings back memories of years past, and of things that happened that year."
Meanwhile, the children's listening service, Childline, dealt with 4,000 calls in December, twice as many as in an average month.
Some children had difficulty in getting through to the helpline over the Christmas period as the service says it can only deal with about one in 10 calls made. In 2001, 750,000 calls were made, but the helpline had the capacity to deal with only 70,000 of these.
More volunteers and resources had been deployed since then, but the helpline was still unable to cope with the volume of calls, said Ms Áine Lynch, Childline manager. Anecdotal evidence suggested that children did not give up trying to contact the line if it was busy, she said.
The service dealt with 397 calls from children on Christmas Day and 305 on New Year's Eve, but many more were made.
Young callers said they felt disappointed and let down with the reality of Christmas. They expected that they would have a perfect Christmas but then found that problems in the home continued.
Domestic violence, sexual abuse, loneliness and depression were mentioned by young callers, who ranged in age from 10 to 15.
The service is run by the ISPCC, which announced its plans for 2003 this week. Mr Paul Gilligan, the ISPCC chief executive, said he would be campaigning vigorously for vetting procedures to protect children from abuse.
The deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham had highlighted the need for such regulations.
"Vetting procedures in the UK are comprehensive and well developed, yet still did not prevent the deaths of these two children. Procedures in Ireland are grossly inadequate in comparison," he said.
