Ms Margaret Martin:

It was a decision by the Department of Justice and Equality to keep the national monitoring committee. The regional committee meetings then ceased. They were supported through the HSE, as far as I recall. Much work was done by the national steering committee, with guidelines fed in by Safe Ireland, Sonas, us and a range of domestic violence services. The difficulty was trying to implement them. The Department said to us that the concept of subsidiarity meant that one had to recognise the decision-making process at local level. It tended to get stuck. Our experience is that it was an area where about half of our time was spent in courts. The same time was spent supporting women with housing options. That has fallen away because of the housing crisis, because we have not been able to have any impact in that sector. There are not enough housing options.