asked the Minister for Health if, in view of the continuous overcrowding and consequent inability to admit any more women or children to the Women's Aid Refuge in Harcourt Terrace, Dublin, he will take steps to provide adequate accommodation for battered women and their children.
Ceisteanna—Questions . Oral Answers . - Battered Women's Accommodation .
11.
: The Eastern Health Board are making immediate arrangements to assist Women's Aid in the provision of additional hostel accommodation. This will help to relieve the present overcrowding in Harcourt Terrace. The longer term arrangements for the provision of refuge and hostel accommodation are being reviewed with Women's Aid and the health board.
: Could the Minister give some indication of what the Eastern Health Board's assistance might comprise of?
: Most people involved in this are now agreed that the best way of dealing with this situation is to have emergency hostel accommodation for families which are under stress, and then to phase families out of that emergency accommodation into more permanent places. As the Deputy knows, Dublin Corporation have come to our assistance to a very considerable extent by agreeing to re-house certain families. That is the way we are going to develop it—by having one or more emergency hostels with additional accommodation of a more permanent nature then available.
: Can I take it from the Minister's reply that in approaching this problem in that way his Department would assume a partial responsibility for making a housing contribution either directly or indirectly to a local authority which provide non-market housing for such people after they leave the temporary shelter?
: No, that has not arisen. The housing authorities have not asked us for such a contribution. They are prepared to undertake this obligation as part of their housing authority duties.