Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I commend my colleague, Senator Moloney, for tabling the motion and I am pleased to second it. It is an issue with which I have been much involved in terms of support and raising it. As Senator Moloney stated, it is an issue which does not get raised often enough. We are making a contribution today, not only through raising the issue again, but through asking and continuing to lobby for matters we believe are important to the very many women who struggle and are victims of domestic violence in Ireland today.

I am not very good at maths, but by my calculations every day approximately 18 women, and it is still mainly women who are affected, in the country go for help in some way, shape or form. This is a staggering figure. We tend to think in terms of thousands, and sometimes this stops us realising what we really mean. Very often, the women and their children who reach out for assistance do not receive it. When it comes to violence against women in Ireland we seem to surpass ourselves. We do not seem to be content to allow violence against women to happen, and as Senator Moloney pointed out it is not properly categorised as a crime, but we seem to have a hierarchy of treatment for women who have been subjected to violence and each level of this hierarchy is a new low. The treatment in the 21st century is still nothing short of disgraceful.

In this House and beyond we have wept and lit candles for women living and dead who were abused at the hands of the church, the State and doctors, some of whom were complicit with the church. These tears and candles were appropriate, but they cease to have any meaning in a society which still treats victims of domestic violence as if they were a cross between lepers and banished people. Whether the incidence of domestic violence is increasing or reporting is increasing does not matter a jot to the individual women who reach out for help. There are more now than there were five years ago but budgets are set to be cut again this year for the fifth year in a row. This cut in funding is not one which leads organisation to state they cannot manage. It has two very direct knock-on effects, as centres simply cannot operate phone lines as often as normal so they cannot pick up the phone, and they must turn women away. Last year the Domestic Violence Advocacy Service Sligo, Leitrim and West Cavan turned away 31 women who had to return to share accommodation with their abuser.

Across a great swathe of the country, nine counties still do not have proper refuge provision for women. These counties include Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan and Monaghan. Sligo now has one safe house suitable for one family, perhaps a mother and her children, and we may have another by the end of the year. This is all there is. Otherwise, if it is absolutely overwhelmingly urgent, people must be shipped out of the county and therefore lose any contacts and small support they may have had. I know of two children who did the junior certificate last year who were removed from their schools and sent to another county because of the situation in their homes.

We speak about terrible events happening in India to young girls, and they are terrible, but terrible events are also happening here to women and children and we seem to have stopped caring. When these women go home perhaps they hope it will not be as vile or violent as it had been, but of course every time it is just as vile and violent as it was before. I applaud the robust efforts of the Domestic Violence Advocacy Service based in Sligo under the stewardship of Niamh Wilson, because it has reached out and secured accommodation against all the odds, but it is not enough.

Some women who have been subjected to violence have no claim to help. As the Minister of State will know, if they have a share in the family home, either as partners or wives, they are not allowed to apply for assistance such as housing support, emergency payments or crisis bed and breakfast accommodation.

A community welfare officer has discretion. They can try to use it, but very often they do not have any money left or they use their discretion and say to the women that, on this occasion, she will not get any assistance. Again, the woman and her children are returned home.

There is no clear and transparent process that a woman can expect if she finds herself in this position. Since she is in a relationship with someone who owns a house, that is deemed to be somehow or other sufficient. As a matter of urgency, we need the ruling on housing support to be altered in order that women who present seeking support and crisis accommodation can be treated as women who, effectively at that moment in time, have nothing and have been deprived of everything by the person who has perpetrated the crime. It is the worst sort of violence because they are being violent in the home, and when the woman presents for help, she is yet again the victim of another kind of crime, which is that the State says it cannot help.

If that was not bad enough, what about the women who fail to meet the habitual residency conditions? They cannot get help either. Even if they have a right to reside here, that does not give them any right to help if they need it. If there is a doubt about habitual residency, and let us face it that the system is riddled with the doubt option when it comes to habitual residency, these women are effectively hoping for some kind of charity or a kind hand. They have no rights.

There is this hierarchy and it goes on to those women in direct provision. Who are they? It seems that we do not care at all about women in direct provision who present with difficulties related to domestic violence. They are very often the women who are going to be victims of domestic violence. It is not enough that they endure incredibly difficult conditions in direct provision, a matter which many of my colleagues in the Seanad have raised, but when it comes specifically to domestic violence, it is the women in direct provision who are at the bottom of this appalling hierarchy of abuse where no help is being given.

We should not be proud of the system we have created, a system that at every level does very little to make real change for those who are the victims of domestic violence. Around Ireland, many people are working very hard to provide for these women. I applaud them, and I am proud to have been able, in some small way, to support the work that they do. I am delighted that Safe Ireland is in the Chamber today. We marked International Women's Day in the Seanad this year and last year with Safe Ireland. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, with Safe Ireland, launched the Safe application for Android telephones. I am proud to offer my support for the domestic violence advocacy service in Sligo and for the work that many people do in a very hidden way, but they are not solving the problem. They are not making a breakthrough and we are not making any progress. With budget cuts, all that is happening now is a kind of fire-fighting.

I know the Minister of State is not directly responsible for the matter but we are grateful that he is present for the debate. I know that he has enormous compassion and that he will join others to see if a way can be found in the next year to address some of the urgent matters that Senator Moloney and I raised. For too long we have sat very comfortably on some fence of shame, so to speak, when it comes to women in Ireland. If we really want to show that we have moved on, have learned lessons of the past and appreciate and value all women, then we need very prompt change.