Ms Mary McDermott:

I will come in briefly; I do not want to dominate proceedings. It is a repeated call of Safe Ireland that there must be a central, local position in respect this problem. Part of what is at stake is drawing up domestic violence from under the dark rock under which it lies. It is a large-scale social problem in need of an integrated and central response from the Government. As Ms Graham pointed out, we have relied on - this is worthy of much praise - local community activism that provides great learning, insight and expertise. Nonetheless, if we rely on philanthropic support in the context of major cases, we often end up being guided by the wishes, ideology or ethos of the funders. There is nothing wrong with that, but we need a State response to what is a large-scale social problem. We need systematic, integrated, sustainable roll-on funding for all the services in this area.

In support of Ms Bentley's position, Safe Ireland believes that sex-gender and sexuality constitute the axis around which all of this revolves. It needs close attention and resourcing for the training on the specifics of how it manifests itself across various lives. It also needs an integrated State response and large-scale funding. If domestic violence was put front and centre in social policy, an array of ancillary and what seem to be idiosyncratic social problems would be addressed in an integrated way. These include: addiction; child protection; housing; difficulties in the context of welfare; justice; and social protection. Putting this front and centre will unleash a lot of energy, imagination and creativity in erasing many of the problems we have as a society. I do not mean to dominate the room here.