Ms Catherine Joyce:

Child and adolescent mental health services have been under-invested in for a long time and have long waiting lists, particularly where children are dealing with the effects of domestic violence, leading to such issues as depression and self-harm and behaviours such as addiction. Having to wait any length of time for services, particularly the year or two years that children currently have to wait, is unsustainable for them. The delay compounds the trauma and issues caused by violence in the home.

Barnardos also echoes and supports calls for the protection of refuge services for children and families and calls for a greater holistic response to domestic violence, particularly with regard to adult and child services, across areas such as housing, health, social welfare and all other relevant Departments. We need greater collaboration and an inter-agency approach to dealing with the issues across child and adult services.

In respect of the legal system, barring orders play a key role in helping to protect women and children. The lengthy delays sometimes experienced in granting barring orders place children at significant risk. We support calls made by Women's Aid last year to introduce a 24-7 on-call system for emergency barring orders to ensure that women and children can get protection as soon as they need it and that they are not left in situations that are potentially harmful or life-threatening. Last year, Barnardos welcomed the Minister's commitment to reforming Ireland's family law system. Domestic violence needs to be given particular attention within this process, given the complexity of cases and the potentially serious impact of poor decision making on children.

As other people have mentioned, leaving situations of domestic violence can be a particularly dangerous time for women and children and issues around custody of and access to children can exacerbate the risk to both the abused parent and their children. Listening to children and giving their best interests priority in decisions around custody and access are vital in these situations. We welcome the inclusion of these principles in the recently published heads of the children and family relationships Bill. Courts must be provided with independent ways to capture the voice of the child and be trained to understand the difficulty for children in sharing their views, especially in situations in which they have lived with the secrecy of domestic violence and have been told for many years not to share what has happened in the home. Expressing their views should not be a further traumatic experience for children. They must be given safe space and the chance to develop trusted relationships with those seeking to ascertain their views and wishes.

One of the key lessons recently for Barnardos and One Family from the contact centres we run has been the importance to the courts of having an independent and trusted family assessment to inform their decisions in complex and difficult cases. Such assessments have been invaluable in supporting courts in making decisions in the best interests of the children. Where there is a history of domestic violence, it is vital that the courts are able to assess the risk of harm to children - either direct risk of violence during access or contact or the risk to their emotional well-being where they are being used to manipulate or attack another parent.