Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her presentation today. I have a few questions. On the €1 million that has been provided for the Garda to upgrade its divisional protective services units, will the Minister expand on that for us? I listened very attentively this morning to the Minister's interview on "Morning Ireland" regarding last night's documentary on RTÉ. I am conscious of the fact that my own constituency is one of the areas that does not have a refuge for women. I was delighted to hear the Minister say that she intends to almost quadruple the number of beds that are available for women and families who find themselves in that situation. Is that part of the €4.9 million in extra funding that is being provided? I also listened very attentively to the Minister saying that she will be leading on a response to domestic violence. The issue crosses so manyDepartments. It is an issue that was very clearly presented here by Safe Ireland and Mary McDermott when she spoke about the fact that there are so many different Government Departments that feed into the issue, including the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. I ask the Minister to provide us with details on how the work is coming together. Are we finally going to have one Department that will be responsible for addressing the issue in an adequate way, so that organisations such as Safe Ireland have one Department that they can go to, or are we still going to be in a situation where three or four different Departments deal with the issue? On the Tusla report that we are still waiting on, does the Minister have any idea when that will be coming to Cabinet? When will the full audit of where the gaps are be completed?

My last question concerns the community safety innovation fund. It is very welcome. I am wondering if that will support local community crime prevention groups. I am thinking, in particular, of the local crime prevention community groups that feed into our joint policing committees and local authorities. They do not actually have any funds, so they have to look further afield. For example, in respect of the property marking scheme and the provision of signage for it, unless the Garda and the local authority have that support, they do not have any source of funds. Perhaps the Minister could expand on that as well.