Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I accept this matter is not the primary responsibility of the Minister of State, but a Department with responsibility for community and rural affairs should be supporting the fight for rural communities to get the services they need. I ask the Minister of State to add his name to the list of those calling for a women's refuge in Carlow, and in all those counties without one. I will set out a striking statistic. In the first nine months of this year, more than 500 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to the Garda in Carlow, but there is no local domestic violence refuge for those who need it. Instead, people are being sent to Kilkenny, Kildare and Dublin, causing unnecessary additional distress and uprooting their lives. The problem has been highlighted many times. Fr. Peter McVerry has described the absence of a refuge in Carlow as "scandalous".

See this speech in context