On 2 March 1970 the first branch of Samaritans in the Republic of Ireland opened in a single room at 39 Kildare Street, Dublin - a building scheduled for demolition. A handful of volunteers staffed a room in relays for 8.5 hours a day, taking calls on a single telephone and answering the door to an occasional visitor.

Thirty eight years later there are 260 active volunteers in Dublin, manning a large city-centre building for 24 hours a day and dealing with 86,000 contacts a year on six emergency telephone lines, in a number of private interview rooms and on computer for emails.

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