Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understand that the Minister for Health is engaged in the other House but I want to bring to his attention, as I am sure does the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy, the plight of Cuan Álainn, a women’s and children’s refuge in Tallaght. It was founded in 2012 by the housing association Respond! and has provided a safe harbour for some 64 for women and 84 children since then. It is a refuge with a difference in so much as it is a second-stage facility designed to provide temporary accommodation and advice to women referred by emergency refuges or other State agencies. Without such a facility, women and children have no choice but to return to abusive partners or be allocated to accommodation for the homeless. Expert opinion suggests the service is necessary and value for money.

Respond! undertook in 2012 to fund this service for three years. It can no longer do so. The annual cost is somewhere between €320,000 and €350,000. Respond! is now confronted by what it says is an unavoidable decision, to close Cuan Álainn. State agencies, including Tusla, accept that Respond! has identified a definite need to care for women and children who must move on from emergency refuges. The typical stay may be from six to nine months while alternative arrangements are made to procure housing for the women and children concerned. I accept the budgetary situation remains difficult and that, in particular, the Tusla budget is under pressure. However, it would be shameful if Cuan Álainn were allowed to close because it serves a huge catchment area where the need is great, as the Acting Chairman, Deputy Olivia Mitchell, knows.

I thank the Minister of State for taking this issue. I ask him to examine whether steps can be taken to protect the service. By way of being helpful, I suggest respectfully that, in the short term, he engage with his colleague the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, to examine whether it is within the competence of both Departments to save the service from closure. If it does close, it will be axiomatic that the cost to the State to provide alternatives will be more expensive.

See this speech in context