Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

According to Rape Crisis Network Ireland, it is the only independent body for rape survivors in Ireland. It is the only voice for Irish women who have been raped. The organisation is the national representative body for 11 of the country's 16 rape crisis centres. It provides them with oversight services and governance, training, research and legal support, in addition to running educational campaigns and lobbying on the centres' behalf. The organisation receives approximately €250,000 per year from Tusla, which is 70% of its overall funding. That 70% is now gone. The people who depend on the network will still require its services and they will be the ones to suffer, having already survived an ordeal. The cut is fundamentally anti-women. It gives the message clearly that services for victims of sexual violence, particularly women, are less important than other services and consequently open to cuts. This latest move, which would strip Rape Crisis Network Ireland of all its funding, will be utterly devastating. It will bring to an end the severely damaged vital services that the network provides.

The Labour Party committed to tackling and eradicating domestic violence and to protecting front-line services in its 2011 election manifesto. How is cutting the funding for the network going to protect the service? The Rape Crisis Centre’s most recent published figures show a substantial increase in the number of people seeking its assistance. Recent years have put even more stress on the services than the centre could cope with. Instead of increasing funding to groups such as Rape Crisis Network Ireland, Women's Aid and refuges across the country, we are now faced with a total cut to the network's funding.

Before the decision to make the cut, there were other cuts of up to 30%, which made the job of the network even harder and put more people at risk. The latest cut is a step way beyond that and it is completely and utterly unacceptable. One cannot put a price on the people the network helps. One cannot say one can help so many people and that is that. The network and other such services must be funded to the extent that they are needed in society.

Dr. Clíona Saidléar, the acting director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland, said four out of five survivors of sexual violence are voting with their feet and are not engaging with the justice system or gaining access to one-to-one counselling.

Therefore, for the Government to say it is sufficient to fund direct face-to-face services for 20% of survivors as well as work to improve legislation and the justice process is not credible. This is not justice. The RCNI was already underfunded and is unable to meet the demand for its services. Far too many survivors never come forward. They do not seek help but suffer in silence. When they do seek help, it can be a battle to be heard, to be respected or to get the care they need. Cutting this funding sends the message to the women who stay silent that they were right to do so because the State - their State - does not care. I know this is not true. I know that this Government is not made up of bad people. However, with this decision, it has divorced itself from the real consequences and they are not acceptable.

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