Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy raised a number of big questions. When the Cabinet discussed the move to level 5, the Minister for Justice and Equality and I spent a significant part of the meeting discussing the specific issue of domestic violence and reactivating the various Garda and Tusla programmes that were in place to support the victims across this period.

During the original Covid-19 lockdown, it became clear that a significant number of existing refuges did not adequately provide for social distancing. As a result, a number of spaces in refuges were lost in the immediate term. Tusla, working with hotels and various non-governmental organisations, sourced an adequate number of additional new spaces to replace the places that had to be closed due to social distancing requirements. That is particularly important in the context of the strategic review that I spoke about earlier. We have to ensure that all new domestic violence services are Covid-proofed as we go forward.

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