Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to have equality when women's lives and safety are also at risk. The Taoiseach agrees that according to the statistics there is an epidemic of violence against women. Of the 225 women who have been murdered since 1996, nine out of ten were killed by their own partners and 61% were killed in their own homes.

We signed the Istanbul Convention but we have only one in three of the recommended refuge spaces. In the budget, domestic violence was given €20 million in funding and greyhounds got almost €17 million. Domestic violence was given parity of esteem with a cruel industry. Funding for sexual violence increased by 10% but it was halved over the ten years of austerity. Calls to the rape crisis centres have increased by 25%.

There are only three refuges in the greater Dublin area that are operational right now. I was told that the refuge in Blanchardstown turns away up to 500 women and their families every single year and that many women have to be discharged into homelessness. The outreach the centres do, which is critical to give women support and counselling, for example, while attending court, could be expanded into the area of prevention. They could go into schools and speak in communities if they had the funding. The refuge in Blanchardstown could do with two apartments, which it has space for right now, but we need a hell of a lot more. I put it to the Taoiseach that he has not stepped up to the mark in his constituency and he needs to do it. Will he and the Minister beside him, Deputy Zappone, increase such services? We have a major homeless epidemic in the greater Blanchardstown area and that is compounded by women who cannot get into refuges and those who are in refuges who cannot get out of them because they have nowhere to go.

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