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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Dec 1981

Vol. 331 No. 6

Adjournment Debate. - Battered Wives' Accommodation.

I have given Deputy Eileen Lemass permission to raise a matter on the Adjournment. The Deputy has 20 minutes and the Minister has ten minutes.

I would like to thank the House most sincerely for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I would not do so if I was not of the opinion that it is a matter of grave urgency. Coming up to Christmas seems to be the time when the problem of battered wives is seen to be more important than at any other time of the year. As we are coming up to the Christmas season I would like the Minister, in her capacity as Minister for Health and Social Welfare, to do what she can for the women and the children who find themselves in this situation. This time last year there were 28 women and 90 children staying in the refuge. It is a sad fact that Christmas time seems to bring an increase in the number of women and children who suffer from violence in their homes. That is why I am so concerned about this and I regard it as a matter of grave urgency.

The Minister, in reply to a question of mine on 17 November 1981, said:

I presume the Deputy is referring to the current problems which Women's Aid is experiencing in finding alternative premises to the refuge at Harcourt Terrace which is no longer suitable for use as a refuge for battered wives and their children. I am anxious to provide whatever assistance and support I can for the victims of family violence. In relation to this particular issue, my Department have been in continuous contact with the Eastern Health Board in regard to their efforts to secure a suitable premises for the Women's Aid organisation. A number of premises have already been under consideration but none has been found suitable so far.

The Women's Aid group have informed me that in recent times they have found four premises which in their opinion were suitable, the last one being about a week ago when a premises went for auction on 27 November. The Women's Aid group went to the trouble of getting an architect to look at these premises and inspect them. They got an architect's report which stated that these premises were in good repair, structurally sound in every way. The Women's Aid group maintain these premises would have been ideal for them, so I cannot see how the Minister can state that no suitable premises have become available.

The Women's Aid group were unable to get involved in bidding for these premises because they had no commitment from the Minister that any funds were available to them. They find themselves in the situation where time and again they are finding a suitable premises, sending an architect to inspect it, but when it comes up for auction they cannot get involved in bidding because they have no commitment from the Department to say they can do so. I suggest to the Minister that this is a very serious situation and her Department will have to make a decision very quickly.

It might be thought that those women have alternative ways of solving their problems because they can apply to the courts for barring orders. Apparently this does not work, because a husband who is barred from the family home can come back at any time and he can kick the door down and got into the house. The majority of those women are alone in their homes with their children with violent husbands on their doorsteps and no way of contacting the Garda. What do they do in that situation? Do they run out into the street? The majority of those people have not a telephone in their homes. Some of them are living in rural areas and have no telephone or any contact with anybody. They have to put up with this abuse time and time again. Even when the Garda are contacted they are very reluctant to interfere. Even though a woman has gone to the courts and got a barring order, she finds it is not working and she still has the problem of a violent husband in her home.

I do not like bringing up this subject again because as far as I am concerned it has been debated to death over the last few weeks. The £9.60 which women at home looking after their children are supposed to get cannot ever be got by any of those women. None of them will ever be in the situation where they can avail of that money. I suggest that some of the money it will cost to implement that scheme would be much better used trying to help those women and give the Women's Aid organisation some money to find a refuge for these people.

Some people might think that this particular topic is not a very serious one and a lot of men in the community will say that those women deserve it. It is a very serious problem in our society. The men who batter their wives are the people who should be treated in time because they are suffering from an ailment. They may be suffering from alcoholism or something else and they should be treated by psychiatrists. I believe there should be some law that insists they go for treatment. Women who are battered by their husbands invariably suffer from a nervous breakdown and end up in some mental institution. They are the people who are seen to be mentally sick. But in fact it is because of the problems they have had to put up with in their homes that they have had to go in there. The husbands are never regarded as being mentally sick and nobody ever insists that they go for treatment. It is a sad state of affairs that a woman who might have to put up with this treatment for all her married life might eventually end up in a mental hospital, where she is the person who is regarded as being unstable, when all the time her husband was the cause of all the problems.

When the Minister was spokesperson for the Department of Justice she pressed for an improvement in the lot of battered wives and their children. I sympathise with her dilemma at the moment. I know she is doing her best, but she will have to try to get a commitment from the Government to do something constructive and quickly for the people in the situation I refer to. Before I came down to the House I rang the Women's Aid group and I asked them: "What is your situation at this particular moment? Tell me what it is like in your house where you have people staying there during the day but who go to night shelters at night time?" Those people have to leave the Women's Aid house in the evenings, because it is a dangerous building since the fire on 7 September. The women and the children are being farmed out every night to various houses around the city. They leave the shelters in the morning and they come back to the Women's Aid house during the day. They sit around in a cold, dilapidated building.

This is the situation that exists as we enter the Christmas season. I asked what was the situation now and I was told that a woman had just arrived from the south with seven children, the eldest of whom was eight years. I was told they had no place to send her but they were working on it. She cannot be kept on the premises because the building is dangerous. The Minister has to do something about this kind of situation. In this instance a woman travelled 100 miles to Dublin with her seven children. She had to run from a situation she could not cope with and now she is looking for some place to stay tonight. Hopefully, somewhere will be found for her before 9 p.m. The woman in question must have a baby of several months old.

I appeal to the Minister to do her best to resolve the situation as soon as possible. We are supposed to be a Christian country but yet we have a situation where mothers are looking for a place for themselves and their children. I realise I must not become too emotional about this, I must keep the matter in perspective. I know I must consider the situation rationally. However, when I rang the Womens' Aid organisation this evening and realised the situation that exists now it convinced me that this is an urgent matter that must be resolved immediately. I ask the Minister to do what she can as soon as possible.

I should like to support Deputy Lemass in her plea that something be done for the unfortunate victims of family violence. It is very sad for us to hear a Deputy tell us of a situation where a lady with seven children had to come from the south of Ireland to Dublin to find somewhere away from the misery of a violent husband.

For many of us some of the things Deputy Lemass said may come as a surprise. Many of us live in our suburban dwellings, away from the troubles and the trauma of having to live with a violent husband. From my experience as a Deputy in County Dublin, I know that every day of the week many women are the victims of an alcoholic husband or of a man who brings out his violence not only on his wife but also on his children. There are many children in this city and throughout the country who are woken and beaten in the middle of the night by a violent father. As Members of Dáil Éireann, as politicians who are here to legislate and to handle the problems of the people we represent, we cannot close our eyes to the reality of the situation. As Deputy Lemass said, we cannot let another Christmas come when this problem gets worse because of increased drinking. We cannot let another Christmas come and go and have these unfortunate women and children with nowhere to stay.

The women currently running Women's Aid are a group of dedicated people. Some of them are professional women, many of them are social workers and there are many voluntary workers. They are doing the job that we as politicians, and particularly the Government, should be doing. We should have somewhere for these unfortunate women and children to go during the day or night whenever they are thrown out of their homes. Unfortunately at the moment we have no such premises. All of this is because as a country and as a Legislature we have not faced up realistically and compassionately to the problem of marriage breakdown. This is part of the tragedy of what happens in a very unhappy marriage situation.

Recently I met some of the women from Women's Aid and they described to me some of the scenes Deputy Lemass described to the House. I was horrified to think that following the fire in September these women have to be taken away from the dangerous building at night. That building may cause as many deaths as occurred in the Stardust tragedy. Then, there may well be another outcry and people may say there should not have been anybody in the building, but there is nowhere else for the unfortunate women to go. All that the workers in Women's Aid want is to get a commitment from the Minister that she will provide a fund of £200,000 should Women's Aid find a suitable premises. Deputy Lemass has said that a number of premises have come on the market. The architects working for Women's Aid have indicated that the premises are suitable and could be refurbished. All that is required is a commitment in writing from the Minister and her Department to say that if the Women's Aid people go to an auction and buy a building the Department will stand over the transaction and pay for it.

We have received many oral commitments. I know the Minister is very concerned about the situation but it is little use merely to wax eloquent about our concern. There is no point in saying something should be done. All the Minister has to do is to allocate approximately £200,000 of State funds. That is not a lot to ask for out of a current budget. This money is needed for the unfortunate victims of family violence. If these unfortunate people are not looked after the problem will get worse. The women will end up in psychiatric hospitals and the children will have to be taken into care. It will cost the State far more money if we do not give a commitment here today to allocate the £200,000 which the Women's Aid group have requested.

The Women's Aid group told me of the hundreds of married women who have passed through their premises in the past eight years and of the thousands of children who have gone through their hands, far more than would go through the average primary school. It is sad to think that in a so-called Christian caring society where we spend so much time trying to prove to our friends in Northern Ireland that we have an understanding of their problems, that here we have many married women, some of them younger than me, who have to leave their homes and have literally to beg on the streets for somewhere to stay.

I want the Minister to give a commitment in writing this evening or tomorrow morning to the dedicated women, many of them voluntary workers, currently running Women's Aid and who are providing a service the State should provide. They are doing a wonderful job and we must give them some reason to carry on. If they have to knock on a closed door all the time they will give up. I wonder then what will happen to the unfortunate women and children.

It is a traumatic experience for any woman to be beaten by a man, particularly her husband. It is even more traumatic when young children are beaten. When that woman has to pack her bags and leave home it adds to the problem and it is even worse when she has nowhere to go. If she is well off she can afford to rent a flat or at least go into rented accommodation for a few nights but most women do not have their own sources of income. When they are beaten up and thrown out of their homes in many cases they literally do not have a penny in their pockets. Many of them have to borrow the fare to get to the Women's Aid centre in Harcourt Street. I met a taxi man who told me that last week on the south side of Dublin he met a woman and two children on the side of the road wanting to go to the Women's Aid premises. She did not know the name of the organisation. All she knew was that somewhere in Dublin there was a place for a battered wife to go to. The taximan took her there but if she had not met a friendly taximan she would have no-one to bring her because she did not have the fare to get to her destination.

I want a commitment from the Minister that she will honour the great work done by women in Women's Aid and recognise the serious situation which many women are in as a result of family violence. I want the Minister to prove she is a caring Minister and that the Government are committed to helping these people and will provide some help to these women and ensure they are looked after by the State.

I assure Deputy Lemass and Deputy Harney of my commitment in this area. That commitment goes back through my public life, as it probably does in the case of the two Deputies opposite. As women Members we are possibly more aware, because of approaches made to us, of the real problem that exists in this area. It is a problem which intensifies as the season of Christmas approaches. It is a problem which, while intense in Dublin, is not confined to Dublin. I know it exists in Cork, Limerick and throughout the State. I acknowledge that but for the work done by other women on a voluntary basis we would have a very serious problem in this area.

As Deputy Lemass said, barring orders are not the answer in that they do not provide for the immediate needs of those who are victims of violence. I am sympathetically disposed to the plea being made to me this evening by both Deputies. It is one that has been made to me by Women's Aid and by many members of my party. It is an issue which an increasing number of Deputies are becoming aware of. It is a pity that there are only three women in the House this evening.

As far as the question of assistance is concerned, I am well aware of the problem, because Women's Aid have brought it to my attention. I am dealing with it as sympathetically as possible. Deputy Lemass mentioned that a number of houses had come on the market which were considered structurally sound. It is my advice, and I take it, that a house which is structurally sound is not sufficient. A house must be adapted to the special needs that exist in the case of women who flee from their homes and seek a refuge in short or long-term. One requires planning permission to adapt a house. This can be a tedious, long drawn out process, as both the Deputies will know from their experience in other areas. My concern is that whatever my Department do to assist in resolving the problem it will be something that can be put into operation in the immediate future. We would solve the problem before Christmas if this were possible.

Nowadays in society refuges are often objected to by people living in the area. An objection could result in a long delay if planning permission had to be applied for. It is my advice that the houses which came on the market to date were not suitable for the immediate purpose for which they were required.

This is not a new problem. It is one which I have been conscious of throughout my political life. I raised this question with the present leader of Fianna Fáil as far back as October 1977. There was a problem then. It was something that neither Deputy Haughey nor his successor as Minister for Health could solve immediately. We came to office a short while ago and I object to the problem being presented to me as something that arose for the first time now and that I am expected to solve. It is a priority with me that I should solve it, but it is a problem that has been with us for too long. I hope to solve the problem on a national basis and in that context to relieve the immediate problem that exists in Dublin. I want to ensure that the money will be well spent.

The premises which so far have come on the market were not suitable. We would have to apply for planning permission. This could result in long delays and would not meet the immediate problem. There is a onus on me to make sure that when I allocate funds for this they are allocated in such a way as to meet the immediate needs that exist. We are in a year of grave financial stringency, far greater than was the situation through the years when this problem was with us. I am committed to resolve the problem because I am keenly aware of the problems of the people concerned.

Deputy Lemass spoke about the sad plight of women commuting between one refuge and another day and night. I do not want to see this continue. We are considering our Estimates at present. There may be other pressing issues in the minds of other people but, to me, there is no more pressing issue that the sight of a homeless woman and her children. There are other issues for which capital is scarce at present. We will know shortly what our situation is. I hope to be in a position to relieve the plight of people about whom we have spoken this evening. I would not be discharging my function as Minister, bearing in mind the case that has been made to me, the urgency of the situation and my knowledge of it, if I did not do something about it.

We must ensure that what we do is in the best interests of the organisation providing the service for the women and children concerned. I assure Deputies of my and the Department's day by day interest in this problem. Architects in the Department have inspected some of the buildings concerned. We are in consultation with the health boards about the problem. This is a priority with me and, bearing in mind the great urgency of the problem, I hope it will be resolved in the not too distant future.

May I speak for a minute?

I am sorry, no.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until Tuesday, 8 December 1981 at 2.30 p.m.

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