Monica Barnes
Question:77 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Health and Children when he intends to adequately fund women's organisations which provide health, counselling and support services (details supplied). [30927/01]
Written Answers. - Departmental Funding.
Framing the Future, the recently published report of the National Women's Council of Ireland and to which the Deputy refers, notes that the women's community and voluntary sector accounts for 2,631 groups and organisations and caters for about 75,000 women annually. These groups range from small locally based women's groups to larger service providing organisations, for example refuges and rape crisis centres.
I am aware of the particular health needs of women and a plan for women's health was approved by Government in 1997 in response to concerns that women's health needs were not always being met by the Irish health services in the past. This plan is the blueprint for improving and developing the health care services required by women. Some of its objectives are: to maximise the health and social gain of Irish women; to create a woman-friendly health service; and to increase consultation with and representation of women in health services.
The plan focuses on 12 key issues relevant to women's health and provides a commitment to action in relation to each of these areas. The actions proposed are consistent with and integrated into other policy initiatives in the health services such as the national cancer strategy, the health promotion strategy, the national alcohol policy, the management development strategy for the health and personal social services and the cardiovascular strategy.
Following the launch of the plan, the women's health council was established in 1997 to develop a centre of expertise on women's health, to foster research into women's health, to evaluate the success of the plan for women's health in meeting it objectives and to advise the Minister on women's health issues generally.
Each of the health boards have appointed co-ordinators of women's health. The health boards may also fund women's organisations for health related projects.
In 1996 the Government set up a task force on violence against women and its report was published in 1997. This report set out a national strategy to tackle the problem of violence against women, including the provision of counselling and support services to victims.
A national steering committee was established to bring together the expertise of the many non-governmental organisations, statutory bodies and Departments which deliver services to women who have been victims of violence. The committee is chaired by Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Mary Wallace.
The provision of health, counselling and support services for women victims of violence is a matter, in the first instance, for the health boards. In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the complementary roles of the statutory and the voluntary agencies in this area.
Funding is provided by my Departmentvia the eight health boards to a range of women's organisations including refuges and rape crisis centres. Since 1997 there has been a significant increase in the amount of funding made available to the health boards for women victims of violence. This has resulted in a considerable improvement to these services. An additional £2.3 million or 2,920,397.58 has been made available in 2001 for services relating to violence against women bringing funding in this area to a total of £8.5 million or 10,792,773.67 this year.