Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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1092. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if funding will be provided for an organisation (details supplied) to publish statistics on rape and sexual assault for 2016 in view of the fact that this cannot be done without same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45715/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Tusla, the Child and Family Agency has statutory responsibility for the care and protection of victims of domestic, sexual and gender based violence.

Since its establishment in 2014, Tusla has reviewed domestic, sexual and gender based violence services with a view to providing more equitable and co-ordinated services across the country.

It was in this context that Tusla decided to cease funding of Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) and to take on direct responsibility for the development and maintenance of a database of information recorded on behalf of the Rape Crisis Centres. Tusla has created a comprehensive national dataset, including information from all funded sexual violence services.

This is designed to ensure that Tusla to meets its requirements for data having regard to the Agency's obligations under the Council of Europe Convention for Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention),and the need for high quality data to underpin responses to victims and survivors of domestic, sexual and gender based violence. It was in this context that Tusla decided to cease funding of Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) in 2015.

Funding provided to RCNI by Tusla was to develop and maintain a database of information recorded by workers in Rape Crisis Centres. Tusla was concerned that the RCNI database did not capture information from all 16 Rape Crisis Centres. At present, only 8 centres are affiliated to the Network.

Tusla funds 60 non-statutory specialist domestic violence and sexual violence services, including: 44 Domestic Violence services and 16 Sexual Violence/Rape Crisis services. These services provide information to Tusla on the services they provide, including those provided to survivors of sexual violence.

This information is critically important as Tusla continues to reform services to ensure that we provide the best possible response to survivors of sexual violence.

Tusla is strongly committed to providing effective responses to survivors of sexual abuse. It takes a broad view of its responsibilities in this regard, recognising that these issues are complex and require a whole of government response. At all times, the first and key priority is to ensure that the needs of victims of sexual abuse are being met in the best way possible.