The voluntary agency Children at Risk in Ireland (Cari) has said it received up to 60 calls last year relating to teenagers who had been raped, including some who had been gang-raped.
National clinical director of Cari, (an organisation providing support to children, families and carers affected by sexual abuse), Alan Corbett, said yesterday that between 45 and 60 calls were made to the agency last year, either by teenagers themselves or by other people about a case where a teenager had been raped.
Mr Corbett said that Cari did not have a breakdown of figures for gang rapes but believed that the numbers affected who were being dealt with by the agency's therapeutic services were "significant".
Mr Corbett told The Irish Times it would appear that there had been clusters of teenage rapes in certain parts of the country. He said that agencies involved in dealing with the victims of sexual abuse would be reviewing the services available for teenagers.
He added that agencies would consider whether teenagers needed a new service or whether existing ones should be adapted. He said that teenagers who had been affected by sexual abuse could fall between services for adults and those aimed at children.
He also said that adult services could not work with teenagers, while sometimes teenagers believed that services for children were not suitable for them.
Mr Corbett maintained that the requirement for parental consent in the provision of therapy for teenagers who had been affected by sexual abuse was "tying the hands of agencies".
He said agencies could not provide therapy for teenagers without their parents' consent.
However, he explained that some teenagers may not wish their parents to know about the trauma they have experienced.
According to the organisation's annual report, released yesterday, Cari received 922 calls to its helpline last year concerning sexual abuse. Just under 170 were silent, while 88 calls were unrelated to sexual abuse. Some 36 per cent of cases related to inter-familial abuse and 28 per cent to extra-familial abuse.
Meanwhile, speaking at the launch of the report, the Minister of State at the Department of Health with responsibility for children's affairs, Brian Lenihan, said that in future all persons having unsupervised access to children will be vetted before being appointed.
He said the Department of Finance had sanctioned additional staff to provide this background vetting service which would be operational by the end of the year. The facility, which will come under the Department of Justice, will be based in Thurles, Co Tipperary.
Up to now, official vetting was only provided for staff working in the healthcare sector. Mr Lenihan said that the service would provide "negative vetting", determining whether applicants had a criminal record.
The Minister urged employers to carry out positive vetting such as the checking of references.
Meanwhile, in a statement last night, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said it had identified gaps in counselling services for teenagers. It said it was launching an initiative to "explore the complex issues involved in offering a comprehensive counselling service to teenagers".
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said that it currently offers teenagers aged 16 to 18 a crisis-counselling service, provided they had obtained parental or guardian consent.
