Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 March 2022
7. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide details of his Department’s plan to support increased domestic violence refuge provision, including progress on the delivery of refuge provision for counties Cavan and Monaghan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15307/22]
View answerI am substituting for Deputy Niamh Smyth. I would like to know the Department's plans to support increased domestic violence refuge provision and the progress in this regard. I am asking the Minister about Carlow, which he will know only too well.
I prepared a response for Deputy Niamh Smyth. I might put that on the record and then address the Deputy's question, on Carlow. Deputy Niamh Smyth has raised this issue regularly. I have received correspondence from Cavan County Council on the matter. I am very much aware of the importance of refuge protection in counties such as Cavan and Monaghan, and, indeed, Carlow.
The response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, DSGBV is cross-departmental and multi-agency, co-ordinated by the Department of Justice. Tusla provides supports for victims of domestic violence, primarily through funded NGO service providers. In 2021, Tusla allocated €28 million in core funding for DSGBV services plus €2 million in contingency funding to address challenges arising from Covid-19. Overall funding to address DSGBV has increased from €23.8 million in 2018 to approximately €31 million in 2022.
I am informed by Tusla that support for victims of DSGBV in counties Cavan and Monaghan is available through the services of Tearmann, which is based in Monaghan and funded by Tusla. Tearmann also provides outreach services in both counties. Tusla's funding to Tearmann in 2021 was just over €214,000. Tusla has indicated that it has engaged with stakeholders in the Cavan–Monaghan area about taking forward provision of safe accommodation and explored options for emergency provision during the Covid-19 period. As the Deputy knows, Tusla published its review of accommodation recently. It assessed the distribution of safe emergency accommodation and examined the level of refuge provision, evidence of demand for services and unmet need.
An interdepartmental group, led by a senior official in the Department of Justice, has been established to examine the physical delivery of refuge accommodation, identify obstructions to delivery, address the perception of significant delays in provision and identify how they can be shortened. Priority areas have been identified where there is the greatest urgency in achieving safe accommodation for victims of DSGBV. There will be engagement with local authorities, Departments and State agencies to source refuge provision, including in Cavan and Monaghan.
I thank the Minister. I ask that he get a report for me on Carlow. I have been involved with various networks. A group of us, including all the relevant agencies, has been working together for the past few weeks, particularly since the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, announced Carlow was to have a women's refuge. We have a great network in Carlow but nobody has corresponded with it. Nobody has heard anything since the report was launched. Nobody knows anything. I sit on the group. We have a meeting next Tuesday. We are expecting another report from the Minister for Justice in April. It is to be the second. I welcome the fact that she, like the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, is committed to this, but the problem is that there has been no communication whatsoever through all the various agencies. The group I am part of has about 20 representatives from all the various agencies. Not one has heard from any Department.
It is great that the Deputy has got the group together. It shows the genuine commitment to the delivery of refuge services in Carlow. The Deputy raised this with me when I visited Carlow recently. She has clearly identified that the mechanisms for the delivery of refuges up to this point have been slow, cumbersome and ill-focused. That is one of the key issues that the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, is working on addressing to ensure we have a clear and fast-acting mechanism. We now have the report that has identified the gaps and now we need a fast process to fill the gaps and allow the groups the Deputy has been bringing together to link in with local authorities, get the capital funding, identify the site and build a suitable, appropriate and, I hope, specifically designed centre to provide for the accommodation needs. That work is ongoing.
Again, I thank the Minister for answering. The matter is important. I have met the Minister and the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, several times about a women's refuge for Carlow. Particularly in the nine counties that do not have a refuge, the urgency is recognised. Sadly, Covid created a crisis for something we knew was not working properly. In Carlow, we have a network set up. We have got all the various agencies together. When I raised this matter as a question on promised legislation, the Taoiseach requested that we put together a group involving all the agencies and be ready to go. I even wrote to the Minister for Justice about properties on sale in Carlow. I have done everything I can. I assure the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that I have left no stone unturned. I acknowledge he is committed. I ask him and the Minister for Justice to communicate with the nine counties affected, particularly Carlow. We are ready to go on this; all we need is the go-ahead.
The Deputy does not in any way need me to back her up on this. I was in Carlow–Kilkenny on Monday and met the various groups, including Carlow Women's Aid and the Carlow and South Leinster Rape Crisis Centre. They are so much further ahead than Tusla in their work, in what they have identified, in what they can deliver and in the speed at which they can deliver. What the Deputy says is absolutely accurate. I see the same in Dún Laoghaire. The accommodation review identifies ten spaces. The joint policing committee has been working on this for two years and has identified a need for 20 spaces. It is at the point of simply trying to get the building. My point is that the group is further ahead than Tusla. It is a point of concern where the accommodation review is behind what is actually happening on the ground between the local authority and Garda, led by the joint policing committee and councillors. When the accommodation review report comes out, it is behind the work in this regard. That is of concern to me. I ask the Minister, who has responsibility for Tusla, to call in its representatives and make sure Tusla is keeping pace with the work on the ground. This is too urgent to be allowed to go slow.
As both Deputies know, responsibility for delivering the refuge services is being moved from the Department and Tusla to the Department of Justice. That is an issue on which the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, and I have been working. It has been decided across Government that the Department of Justice is the appropriate location for both the setting of policy and the delivery of new refuge space. We will be seeking to facilitate the transfer of the responsibilities. We have been working very closely with the Minister for Justice on this issue since the formation of the Government.
