Ms Margaret Martin:

We have a freephone national helpline to deal with refuge needs. We are in touch with a great many refuges. The problem for a lot of them is that there is nowhere to send women. In the past they were sent to homeless hostels, bed and breakfast establishments, etc. The difficulty is that these women are often at very high risk. When a woman in this position leaves her partner, the risk escalates significantly. Domestic violence services always put safety at the core of their work with women. They have safety measures to protect women, children etc. In regard to local authorities, the unfortunate reality is that there is sometimes difficulty for women trying to access refuge outside the county they live in. There can be good relationships between local authorities where there is some openness to that. We have sometimes heard of cases where women are not accepted in their local areas.

We also receive calls from gardaí who might have a woman and three kids who are at very high risk in the back of a car. The garda needs to find a refuge space and asks us to name anywhere in the country where protection can be found, offering to take them there. However, no refuge is available anywhere. There are Council of Europe guidelines on this issue and we have about a third of the refuge space we need. That is significant.

I will address the question on migrants and perhaps Ms Regan will deal with the others. Migrants definitely have significant additional needs. Isolation is very much a tactic in cases of domestic violence. If a victim has a language difficulty, the isolation process can be much easier and more effective. For the last several years our helpline has had access to translation services in 170 different languages in less than a minute so that if somebody contacts us they can speak in his or her own mother tongue. It is a difficult subject to talk about. We share that service with refuges, and sometimes we are able to set up calls with refuges, the Garda, etc. However the service is not available as standard. That is a major issue. A significant number of migrant women use the services. We have links in that community and did an awful lot of work over a long period with the Immigrant Council of Ireland. There are a lot of really good connections there. Language is one of the big considerations. In addition to having things that are more accessible for people with difficulties, our website has sign language for deaf women and BrowseAloud software for people with sight issues. A lot of parts can be text-read. All of our information is available in about eight different languages.