Ms Ann Irwin:

I will respond to Senator Barrett's last question about the contradiction between a high rate of unemployment and a need for child care.

In Ireland we have a very low level of investment across our child-care and early education systems, one of the lowest among OECD countries. The consequence of this is the high cost of these services. Any investment we have made has been a dual type of investment, partly in private and less so in public services. When one refers to private child care services, one refers to for-profit enterprises. In Ireland we were very late coming to investment in child care. Instead of taking the opportunity to provide for and invest in a world-class, publicly funded system, we put at least half of our funding into privatised, for-profit services. That is the system we are left with, on which the "Prime Time" programme began to shine a light, and we need to roll it back. The NWCI seeks a public system with a level of investment that allows for it to be high quality but also accessible and affordable. The Deputy is right about the high rate of unemployment and people seeking work and opportunities; that could be an area to be examined.

On Deputy Boyd Barrett's point about women's refuges, year on year we are seeing an increase in the levels of domestic violence and violence against women. I am a voluntary director of a small domestic violence organisation and we see it day in, day out. There are areas around the country that have no refuge, for example, Sligo, which is a large area in which to have no refuge. It is extraordinary. We need to flip the coin and put the emphasis on the perpetrator, not the women and children, leaving the home, but that would require legislative reform and real political will because currently the emphasis is on women and children making changes. In the absence of this, we must reverse the cuts to the services that are now protecting women. We need to ensure services are available for them as they move from the situation in which they find themselves because we know women can be left in refuges for six months while they search for a place to stay. We need a concerted effort to ensure women and children are protected, while keeping in mind that we need to reform the whole area.