Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is clear that since Istanbul, the State has to up its game. I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. Over the past couple of years, the gathering of data has been crucial to this committee. The statistics available in the UK, for example, are light years ahead of what we have here. As was mentioned by few of the witnesses, research is key.

Generation of policy was mentioned by a number of witnesses as being important. It was also mentioned that is it important that there is an inter-agency for housing, for example. Some of the witnesses attended a conference at the weekend which examined issues such as resourcing, funding, the lack of funding and other agencies such as community development and the groups dealing with those who are victims of violence which are very much underfunded. Do any witnesses want to comment on that?

I spoke to a local person who was dealing with refuges in Athlone. There are nine counties in the State that do not have any safe accommodation. The person said there had been a mass exodus from of lawyers from family law courts, resulting in many women not being represented. There are huge delays in accessing legal representation and often women come to court and feel there is no equality of arms when they get there. Do the witnesses have any comments on that?

Difficulties accessing the courts have been mentioned. What lessons can we learn from what happened in the UK in terms of the maintenance agencies which were established in order to take cases away from the courts? Have we taken learnings from the UK? How can things be improved in our planning for the future?

The deficit in safe accommodation was something that came up. While I respect that is important, women in particular should be able to stay in their own homes as much as possible.