Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Today I want to raise two separate but interrelated issues. It is international women's week. However, throughout the whole year, we talk about domestic violence. We constantly see articles and news reports online about the number of women who have died in the country. What I am facing at the moment in terms of supporting women is that it is not only about safety, but the decisions that are being made about who has a right to safety. Currently, women in addiction who are trying to flee domestic violence are being faced with a question around substance use when looking to access refuges. They are being denied safety because of substance use. It is already hard enough to leave a domestic violence situation before we layer on issues in relation to poverty, social class, addiction, lack of support, lack of quality housing and so on. Right now, there are refuges saying they will not take women in who are experiencing any sort of addiction issues, be those issues lived or living. Services working with women are not referring them to those refuges out of fear of highlighting that they may be linked in with them for supports in respect of substance use. During one phone call to a refuge, the woman on the other end of the line said the refuge had to think about the safety of the women and children in the refuge. Hang on a minute. That is saying that a woman, because she has some experience with substance use, is somehow a threat to the women and children in that refuge, those apartments or whatever the setup. It is completely wrong.

In another situation, a woman had left her house in a working class community at the request of the Garda under a threat to life notice. She was seeking safety as a woman, under a threat to her life, in a domestic abuse situation. She is now in a bedsit with three teenage children. She is still paying rent on the house that is boarded up. The council bureaucracy is now saying it will not move her into other accommodation unless it is like for like, because it was a two-bedroom unit. Women who are already in a very unsafe situation are being told that, because of their socioeconomic background or their experiences with addiction, refuges care about their safety, just not enough to make sure to put them in a better position. To have the Garda request someone leave her house is a big threshold to meet. That person is now in a one-bedroom bedsit with three children she is not able to get into school.

I ask that we have an honest conversation, not only around domestic violence and refuges, but about who is making decisions about who has a right to actually access safety.