Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like to thank the witnesses for their responses. Mr. Killoran has pretty much answered my follow-up question in what he said. I would like to touch on some of the points. Sr. Keenan spoke about when people are seeking emergency accommodation when experiencing domestic violence. I have encountered that a lot in my constituency. The way that people are met at the housing authorities shows that there is not training with how to deal with these difficult situations. I have heard of people having to prove that they are homeless. In these kinds of situations, one does not have proof of that when they have left the home. It highlights how much more difficult it is to leave, when one thinks about all of those barriers that the person is met with and has to face when he or she gets to the housing authority. There is also the situation of leaving when one’s immigration status is dependent on one's partner.

I would like to highlight that in Ireland it is a disaster that, although under the Istanbul Convention we are supposed to have one refuge space for domestic violence per 10,000 people in the country, instead, Ireland provides one space per 10,000 women. We therefore have 50% less refuge space than the bare minimum. It is horrible to think of that woman and her family who were told that they had to leave. It is unbelievable.

Mr. Killoran spoke about how it is at the Minister’s discretion in many of these situations whether people who have fled that unsafe situation can get their own immigration status separate to their partner. I was not aware of that. Like he said, there is not much awareness about it. He mentioned that it is somewhere on the Department of Justice website. The question I was going to ask is if we need to create more awareness, or does it need to not be at the Minister’s discretion? He answered the question there, in that we need to look at the aspect of how much discretion that Department has in relation to making decisions on people’s lives and the lack of consistency there. Although there are probably many things that they have discretion on deciding, but using the domestic violence situation as an example, and people’s immigration status being dependent on their partner, if that were to change, is the best change there that you can apply and get that and you are guaranteed it, if that is the situation you are in, that it is not linked to your partner? Could Mr. Killoran maybe elaborate a bit on the best way we could change this to make it more suitable?