Ireland

Late Late Show raises €1.6m in public donations for Pieta House

‘Massive jump’ in calls to charity’s helpline during Covid-19 crisis, says chief executive

Last month, the annual Darkness Into Light fundraiser for Pieta House was postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis, resulting in a loss of approximately €6 million. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Jade Wilson
Sat May 9 2020 - 00:31

The Late Late Show raised €1.6 million in public donations on Friday night for mental health charity Pieta House, which recently announced salary cuts of up to 30 per cent and 28 redundancies for clinical support workers due to a “very significant funding gap”.

The show was dedicated entirely to raising funds for the charity and featured appearances from a number of celebrities calling for donations including actor Pierce Brosnan and musicians Mary Black, Sharon Shannon, Frances Black and Mary Coughlan.

Electric Ireland, the charity’s longtime supporter of eight years, offered an additional donation of €100,000, bringing the total amount raised for the charity to €1.7million.

‘Very vulnerable’

Tom McEvoy, funding and advocacy manager for Pieta House, told The Irish Times last week that the charity was “very vulnerable” as 80 per cent of its funding comes from public donations. Last month, the annual Darkness Into Light fundraiser was postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis, resulting in a loss of approximately €6 million.

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Show host Ryan Tubridy said he initially hoped to raise €250,000 for the charity, which provides free therapy to those engaging in self-harm, with suicidal ideation, or bereaved by suicide. Within 60 minutes, the public had donated €752,000.

Elaine Austin, chief executive of Pieta House described the volume of donations from the public as “truly amazing”.

“I was sitting in the green room watching and what I had in my head is . . . ‘The light boats are coming’. The Irish people have got Pieta in their hearts,” she added.

Ms Austin said there has been a “massive jump” in calls to the helpline from 6,000 throughout February, March and April in 2019 to 14,000 during the same period this year. “We have to consider that that’s associated with Covid-19. That’s associated with people feeling isolated, those cocooning, there is a level of fear and anxiety out there that we’ve never experienced before,” she said.

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