Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Harris, to the House in his new role as Minister for Justice. He is here to speak to us about a serious topic. It is about zero tolerance of any type of abuse of women. It is incredible to think that we need to have a strategy to say this. It should be crazy to think that we need such a strategy. It should be automatically within us that there is never violence against men or women and particularly women. We see now that so much has to be done for us as a society. It is not only in Ireland that this is the case as I know it is also the case throughout the world.

As the Minister stated, it is about a change in our attitude and behaviour. Each one of us has a role in this. Sometimes as a public representative it is about people reaching out to us and how we support them. How do we as public representatives do this? How do we, as friends, family members and work colleagues, have a space where people can reach out to us, speak to us and tell us about the experiences they are going through? It is about that first step of speaking out. How do people feel safe to do this? Sometimes this first step is made to employers and this is also very important. Perhaps it is the case that people cannot get into work. Perhaps this is the first symptom.

The majority of cases involve someone people know. It is their partners, it is in their home and it is in what should be a safe space. The strategy contains the astonishing statistic that 13% of all domestic violence applicants are parents of adult children. Sometimes we think of partnerships in this context but there is also domestic violence against parents in the home.

I acknowledge the Government funding support of €363 million. The domestic sexual and gender-based violence service agency is based in Tusla. I have some questions on how it is working because there is an interagency approach. I take it that the Department of Justice is taking the lead.However, this is within a separate Department, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. How is it working between those Departments? The Minister has mentioned a doubling of the number of refuge places for women. That is absolutely crucial. I would really like to see this being looked at in respect of towns and regional areas rather than just by county. In my area of Roscommon and east Galway, there are no refuge places, although there are some in Galway city, 40 miles from Ballinasloe. If a woman needs a safe place to stay immediately, there should be something available in reasonably sized towns as well as in our city centres. That is a real issue in regional areas because women need a place to go for the night. They may need to get out of a dangerous situation for a couple of days. Once they are out of that situation, they may be in a safer space. Tusla has been allocated €37 million. Is that funding going to assist in doubling the number of places? Is that the funding being used? Is it Tusla that is taking the lead in respect of this measure? What is being done in respect of regional areas? I really appreciate the funding announced by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to support agencies. She put a particular focus on regional areas because there are very few supports there for what is a significant part of the country. I understand the pressure on accommodation we now face.

Women's Aid was in contact with us. It provides a vital service. Its representatives talked to us about prevention and raising our children to engage in relationships. They also talked about employers and leave for these types of situations. I will again highlight that there is a 24-hour national freephone helpline for people who are listening and who need this help which can be reached at 1800 341 900.

On the Minister's dual roles in the Departments of Justice and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, I welcome his visit to Galway where we saw the roll-out of the active consent programme from the University of Galway. This programme provides consent education, training resources, workshops, educational videos, original dramas and social media campaigns for colleges, schools and sports organisations and I really wish to highlight it. This material is on the websiteactiveconsent.ie. We need to roll this out to schools. Despite the fact that he wears two hats, I do not know if the Minister has any update on the roll-out of that programme to secondary schools.

I acknowledge the work of gardaí in my area. As public representatives, they are our very first port of call. They have been very helpful. They receive a lot of training and have been very supportive in different situations. On a matter that spans different Departments, we need to pilot alcohol and drug addiction services. That also needs to be part of this strategy because alcohol and drugs are key factors in violence in the home. To mention one last thing, I acknowledge Men Overcoming Violence, MOVE, the work it is doing.