Government claims it is unable to calculate costs of violence against women

A LACK of commitment to gathering information on violence against women appears likely to be the main reason for the Government’s claim that it is unable to calculate the cost of the act.

The Department of Justice told the Irish Examiner that when it attempted to calculate the economic burden of the violent abuse of women, it was too complex an area to put an overall figure on.

However, the experiences of other European countries, which have prepared successful estimates of the cost to their economies, suggests the main reason for this failing does not lie in the complexity of cases but rather the scant details Irish service providers gather.

In response to questions from the Irish Examiner, the Department of Justice said it cannot even estimate the amount of money various Government agencies spend on the sector.

For example, a cost cannot be prepared on policing as there are no uniform statistics available on incidents, call-outs, arrests, detentions and court appearances relating to violence against women.

There is no estimate on the demand it places on the health sector because A&E rooms, mental health practitioners and GPs do not feed information into a central domestic violence database.

As chair of the National Steering Committee on Violence Against Women, the Department of Justice is aware the Department of Health has been spending €12m a year on services and that this will increase by €4.5m in 2007.

However, this figure only relates to monies paid out to front line services and takes no account of how violence against women impacts on the day-to-day operation of the health sector each year.

“It is difficult to measure the total funding being spent on violence against women because of the nature of the services a victim requires.

“For example, the victim may require health care services in a hospital or from a General Practitioner.

“The costs to the Garda Siochána and judicial process are not easily measured either,” the Department claimed.

However, in the North of Ireland — which has a far more developed system of tracking domestic violence — it is estimated violence against women costs its economy €300m a year and has caused the death of more than 50 people since 1996.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recorded 16,000 incidents of domestic violence in 2004.

Dedicated domestic violence officers are assigned to every serious incident and are charged with assessing all aspects of that violence.

The PSNI has calculated that the cost of these measures was less than €2m in 2004 and that it handled 48 cases a day.