Ms Mary McDermott:

We have had a few discussions on services in Monaghan and Cavan. The first thing that Safe Ireland is saying is that this is a historical opportunity. We do not want to squander resources. Second, it is a very simple, old-school and deeply-imbedded insight within domestic violence work generally that refuge is not the answer to domestic violence. That is the simple starting point. However, making that point is like saying that field hospitals are not needed in a war. We need refuges and we will probably always need them. Noeline Blackwell observed last week that if there are better and stronger responses to domestic and sexual violence in the country, we will see a rise and then a fall in numbers.

To answer the Deputy's question on mixed models, what we want to see and what we do not want to see, from our perspective, we want to see a skills-led community response. We want to see refuges and spaces as places that not only provide refuge and high-end skills that are there all around in our own network of 38 organisations. We have talked about, and Dr. Munyi mentioned, the capacity for front-line triage, including risk and safety assessment. The disciplines that almost automatically have to kick in when a woman presents at a refuge include: legal supports; accompaniment; advice; housing and accommodation outside the immediate needs of refuge; social welfare; education, training and employment; and crucially, the full therapeutic supports that are needed. We also welcome the news that for the first time, one of our members in County Donegal that solely provides therapeutically based services has received funding. That is fantastic.

In our presentation, we were really trying to say that the structures that we are going to put in place will seriously impact how the services are rolled out and provided across the country. As the Deputy is aware, previously, responsibility for domestic violence has been based in various locations within Government. It was previously the responsibility of the HSE. There have been various iterations. This is not an attack; it is just a description. As members are aware, responsibility has been moved from within the Child and Family Agency. I cannot stress enough the fact that the Child and Family Agency had responsibility for the area, without a mention of the word "woman". The role of the woman has been almost reinscribed in a knee-jerk fashion as one of carer, as subservient to the needs of those who are dependent around her. Her own rights, needs and violations, in themselves, do not have priority. Safe Ireland will never stand on that ground. We see this as an opportunity to move away from that inadvertent reinscription of the problem. I must say that we have really good relationships with Tusla, by the way. This is not an attack on anyone; it is just about how best to create the right system in this country. Keeping domestic violence under the remit of children and young people, as is proposed in the draft strategy, will just simply serve to reinscribe the very thing we have been working to stop. We wanted and asked for policy and services together.

We want an articulated structure from the top down, with oversight by the Taoiseach's office, a Cabinet-level responsibility and an interdepartmental and a whole-of-government response. I know that everybody in this House has been listening to the term "whole-of-government" for probably about 20 years, as everybody needs such a response to everything, but we need a whole-of-government response to be put in place for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. When it comes down to the regional structures, importantly and crucially, it will fall or stand on this point. There are several models such as the Garda regional divisions, community healthcare organisation, CHO, divisions, and those of the courts. There are many models of regionalisation and we are not proposing any one in particular but they need consideration. From there, one works directly with the already-in-place, however fragile, unsupported and 19th century, Dickensian and badly resourced services, but there are, nonetheless, enormous levels of expertise all around the country. That expertise must not be lost and dedicated DSGBV structures at local level must be created to access the resources that are already there. Does that answer Deputy Niamh Smyth’s question?