Support group calls for single department to deal with domestic violence

DOMESTIC violence support group Women’s Aid has called for a single Government department to take control of the area of domestic violence.

The call came as staff on new projects, such as a planned €2.7 million refuge in Blanchardstown, Dublin, say they are finding it impossible to secure funding.

Sonas director Muireann Morris said the situation is “desperate” as more women are now turned away from existing refuges in Dublin than are cared for.

“Can you imagine what it must be like to make the decision to leave home and then to find yourself turned away? We have made contact with all the various departments but are getting sent from one to the other,” she said.

“It’s an absolute disgrace that there isn’t a proper, transparent funding system. We have six different government areas looking after this area and this has meant that our refuge figures per head of population are way below the North and UK.”

The need for a women’s refuge in Blanchardstown has been highlighted in Fingal local area plans and in the Dublin Homeless Agency plan for five years.

All the political parties in the area are in agreement on the dire need for such a facility.

Spokeswoman for Women’s Aid, Teresa O’Donnell, said the division of domestic violence between numerous Government departments is a “problem that effects all areas” of her work.

“It makes it easier for them to pass the buck elsewhere. We face that problem all the time,” she said.

A spokesman for the Eastern Health Board, Northern Area said that funding was to be examined as part of a 2006 allocation.