Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and providing me with the opportunity to outline, on behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, the policy and services in place to deal with sexual abuse. As the Deputy stated, sexual violence has a devastating effect on victims and their families and is a serious health and human rights issue.

In March 2010 the Government launched a four year strategy to provide a framework for sustainable intervention to prevent and effectively respond to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Cosc, the National Office for the Prevention of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence, was established in 2007, under the aegis of the Department of Justice and Equality, to ensure the delivery of the Government's strategy in dealing with such violence. The HSE launched its policy on violence of this nature in 2010. The principal actions of this policy are in line with the Government's strategy. Recently, the national director for children and family services who has lead responsibility in this area has established a national office for domestic and sexual violence within the HSE.

The HSE funds 16 rape crisis centres, 20 crisis refuges and 17 support services, including two national representative bodies, namely, Safe Ireland and Rape Crisis Network Ireland. The total cost in this regard in 2011 was €19.182 million. Some €4.5 million was specifically provided by the HSE to fund sexual violence services in 2011.

We need accurate and relevant statistics in order to ensure that the issue of sexual violence is properly reflected in health policy and subsequently addressed through the health services. The sexual abuse and violence in Ireland, SAVI, report published in 2002 was the first national study of the prevalence of childhood and adult sexual violence in a representative sample of the Irish population. Many of its results were shocking, with more than four in ten women reporting some form of sexual abuse or assault in their lifetime and more than one quarter of men reporting the same. This report was in the main funded by Atlantic Philanthropies with some additional funding from the former Departments of Health and Children and of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. In 2010 the Department of Health and Children was approached for funding to carry out a SAVI-2 study. The projected overall cost for a SAVI-2 study was just over €1 million, at €1,106,779, approximately half of which was being sought from the Department of Health and Children, amounting to €500,000 over the three years 2010 to 2012. At this juncture, officials in the Department pointed out that the allocation of funding had transferred to the HSE which was subject to significant budgetary constraints in 2011. As these constraints are ongoing, neither the Department of Health nor the HSE is currently in a position to support a SAVI-2 study. However, statistics are available from two national databases.

The Rape Crisis Network Ireland is the national representative body for 14 rape crisis centres. It operates a data collection system specifically designed to collect information from front-line services dedicated to working with survivors of sexual violence. These statistics have been published since 2004. Safe Ireland is the national representative body for 39 women's front-line domestic violence services. It has been compiling national statistics relating to the number of women and children accessing their members' services since 2008.

I wish to reassure the Deputy that while we are not in a position to fund this study, the Government is fully committed to addressing the problem of sexual violence and will draw on available up-to-date statistics on the subject in order to inform its policies and services.

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