Rape Crisis Network Ireland has said there was a 98% increase in the number of contacts made by people seeking counselling and support during the three months of lockdown measures.
For the same period in 2019, 647 people contacted the services, but this year for March to June there were 1,284 contacts.
There was also an increase of 83% in the length of time spent on calls made to rape crisis centre helplines.
Elaine Mears, RCNI's Data and Privacy Co-ordinator said: "Where previously helpline contacts may have been just a few minutes, now they were lasting over 30 minutes, with calls up to an hour and a half increasing five-fold when compared to the same period last year".
There were a significant increase in contacts made to rape crisis centre helplines, with overall a 23% increase during the three months of lockdown measures.
The RCNI said the largest increase was in March, with 63%.
Also, during the Covid stay-at-home period, there was an increase in people of all age groups contacting rape crisis centres for support, but especially those aged between 40-49.
The RCNI said that age group is often holding multiple responsibilities such as care of children and elders as well as unemployment or employment, increasing pressures at this time.
RCNI Executive Director, Dr Clíona Saidléar said: "From our conversations with counsellors and managers in RCCs we believe that this is in a large part due to the lockdown measures triggering past trauma". This age cohort are often holding multiple
The RCN I said that almost everyone already in counselling in the centres were able to switch to remote counselling in mid-March, but some were not.
Alongside the counselling that continued, rape crisis centres offered an additional 30% appointments with survivors. These took place by phone or video call.
Survivors contacting through the helpline changed what they wanted from that contact also.
