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

Will the Minister consider keeping the previous allocation of funding and putting it into trying to get the information out to people quicker? I do not mean putting it back into an information campaign. It would be amazing if that could be done.

Safe Ireland's pre-budget submission stated that the State is providing only 29% of the required refuge spaces. This is something we have spoken about previously. The Istanbul Convention standard is one space per 10,000 people. Ireland provides a fraction of this, with the Government and Department relying on the technicality of one space per 10,000 women rather than people. Not only are we funding fewer than one third of the spaces but it seems we are funding even fewer now than previously. According to the Estimates for 2021, the Department funded 22 emergency domestic violence refuges. This decreased to 21 for 2022 and this year. The Department funded 155 family refuge spaces in 2021 and this has decreased to 152 this year. This situation seems completely unjustifiable when the aim is to increase domestic violence refuge spaces. I do not understand how we are funding fewer since the campaign took off. If there was actually going to be an attempt to provide the recommended bare minimum we would need a serious increase in the allocation of funding to drive it.