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

The ambition is to double the number in the lifetime of the strategy, which is only two years into its progress. We have not achieved that yet but I am confident that we will achieve it over the lifetime of the strategy. We are also developing safe houses. This is not just about providing wraparound support within the refuge itself. It is also about making sure that there are step-down facilities for women and children to go to, which will account for the vast majority of cases, and facilities for women who feel they do not need that full wraparound support but still need a safe space to go to. We have accelerated and gone beyond our targets as regards safe houses for this year, as we will also do next year. Protection is one of the key pillars of the Zero Tolerance strategy. It is about making sure that women or men who leave environments of domestic violence have a safe space to go to. The safe houses are supporting men in particular at the moment. Ultimately, we want a scenario in which victims stay in their homes. That is a very clear action as part of the Zero Tolerance strategy and a body of work is happening on that. However, we have to be realistic that these spaces are needed. We need to achieve that target. We are working hard on it and I am absolutely confident that we can achieve it.

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