Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I pay tribute to the many organisations around the country that do tremendous work in the area. Many of these are voluntary organisations and they help mainly women who find themselves in these positions. The lockdown caused by Covid-19 has resulted in problems for people under daily pressure because this pressure was magnified when people could not leave their home and, very often, the abusive partner or person who exhibited manipulation was with them 24 hours a day, seven days per week. It is a terrible position.

I am aware the Oireachtas Library and Research Service has done some work on this in the past couple of weeks and produced a short document that examined the matter in an international context. It is acknowledged that the problem exists in every country. That the problem exists and what we do about it is the real question. A number of recommendations were made in the study and I hope the Government is prepared to do a lot more on this.

One recommendation is that a shelter would be seen as an essential service. It certainly does not seem to be seen as an essential service in the part of the world where I live because in Sligo-Leitrim we do not have a refuge, which is a major problem for the women who find themselves in these circumstances.

I spoke today to representatives of the Domestic Violence Advocacy Service, DVAS, in the north west about this matter. They told me the service through the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown got the same amount of requests for help as it had in January and February. In May, however, these requests skyrocketed, and all through June the levels have continued to be high. Much of the contact has come from women who are contacting the service for the first time.

This reflects the problem we have in our society, and at the core we must ensure there is adequate funding in place to deal with this matter. If we are going to put funding in place, it should not just be funding to maintain an emergency service or rescue people. We must put adequate core funding in place to transform the lives of people who find themselves in such a position. We cannot have a society where people are not safe anywhere. We must make it unacceptable to have a position where women cannot be safe in their own home. To do this we must make this issue an absolute priority. It has been mentioned that a Minister or Minister of State should look after this area, and perhaps that is part of the answer. The real solution will be to focus on how we resolve the matter and transform the lives of people who find themselves in this position.

Legislation to tackle coercive control was introduced last year, and it is an example of something we can do right or well. We agreed it and introduced those provisions. However, it is remarkable to think there has been no training for anybody in any of the services around that. There has been no training for members of the Garda on how to identify or deal with a problem. There has been no training for nurses or people in Tusla. It was a case of passing the legislation here and that seems to be it. It is a shortcoming that must be addressed as quickly as possible. It can be done if the correct effort is put in.

The Government gave an additional €160,000 to various services tackling domestic violence this year, but Safe Ireland looked for €1.6 million to deal with the crisis. The Government provided 10% of the request. There is a major lacuna in taking this matter seriously and it must be addressed. The whole country is talking about this and taking it seriously and yet we put 10% of what was required into the budget to assist the organisations. That €160,000 mainly went to a small handful of organisations in the capital city, and I do not begrudge them in any way, but other organisations, including those in the north west, were left with no money and they got no additional funding.

We must address this problem in a way that will make a difference. It should not just be about rescuing people from a problem or dealing with an emergency. It is about transformation and creating a society where men or women understand it is not appropriate either to coerce, control or act in a violent manner towards anybody, particularly those who are close to them.

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