Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too read the report from Cherry Orchard, which was harrowing. The report yesterday from Women's Aid shows how much of an epidemic this is. It should be something that we all treat as an emergency. What is very welcome from the figures yesterday is that more women are coming forward and they feel they can come forward. Because of the discussions we have had in this House and the emphasis the Government has placed on this issue, women feel safe to come forward and to move away from their abusers.

One of the key recommendations in the zero tolerance strategy and the work that has been taken on by the new domestic violence agency is the delivery of refuge spaces. We have 150 at the moment and we have committed to doubling that with a further 150 in the lifetime of the strategy. We are still in the early stages of the strategy. We have three projects under way. In particular, Wexford will come on stream probably around September this year and additional spaces at Navan and Dundalk are also being progressed. For the nine other counties, one of the biggest challenges is that there have not been service providers there and there has not been a natural fit to develop those services. What I have done is make sure the system is re-engineered so that where we do not have services, they can be identified and progressed as quickly as possible. A number of those counties have that work progressing. While I do not have timelines for them, there is progress happening in all of those and the ambition is still to double the number of refuges, including the nine counties without a refuge, in the lifetime of the strategy.

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