Policy dealing with domestic violence launched by agency
Agency director Don Hennessy said since the establishment of the Cosc office last year, which handles the Government’s response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, there has been no appetite in the cabinet to pursue the difficult reforms required.
“We are launching this framework and making it available to people and services around the country because we are not seeing the Government actually acting on anything.
“We are seeing cases all the time of people getting killed or seriously injured but nothing is being done about it. It is about developing a response that doesn’t hold the victim accountable for their own safety.
“We did the work and developed a model we feel will work but this has not been taken on. The Cosc office is holding a conference and inviting over British experts, but these are the same experts we had over three years ago to tell us what needs to be done. We think it has to move on,” said Mr Hennessy.
Funding for the agency was withdrawn last year. After it was independently assessed by the Depatment of Justice, it was then asked to apply to Cosc for funding for projects this year. These again were rejected.
The agency will today launch the model it developed through its pilot phase in the Bray and Dún Laoghaire district court areas, which it believes needs to be implemented in the style of the Probation Service.
The agency model involves:
nA checklist to help all frontline care workers to identify the level of risk to the victim and what action should be taken.
nA model for gathering all available information in the history of each case coming before the family courts. This would mean the collection of Garda reports, social work involvement, GP and hospital visits, or stays in refuges.
Mr Hennessy said it has limited funding for administration and those involved will take on the project on a voluntary basis. This includes the offer to provide training to activists in each district who want to promote this approach.
The demise of the agency in January 2007 prompted a vociferous backlash from the domestic violence sector after the Department of Justice refused to continue its funding.
The department had put more than €440,000 into the agency over a three-year pilot phase but this fell well short of its expected budget of €3 million.
The Government eventually directed its attention away from groups such as the agency and consolidated its work with the establishment of the Cosc office in May 2007.
Mr Hennessy said, despite initial optimism, the Cosc office has not made the impact it promised and despite the work of some “well-meaning” individuals, the Government has not displayed any commitment to effecting real change.
“The only projects they seem willing to support are the perpetrator programmes [which seek to reform violent individuals] and I don’t think these work,” he said.
In response, the Department of Justice said Cosc is already working on an interagency basis and it “intends that the documents produced by the agency will help inform that work and has advised the agency of this”.
It said Cosc’s work includes the identification of appropriate risk-assessment tools and the identification of possible amendments to legislation or additional legislation in relation to domestic and sexual violence.
“Cosc’s goal is to reduce fragmentation across the system and to ensure standards are in line with best international practice for the prevention of these crimes, the protection of victims and the provision of services to those affected. Cosc is working toward the launch, in autumn 2008, of the first phase of consultation on a national strategic action plan on domestic and sexual violence,” the department said in a statement.
A public call for submissions to inform this national strategy was published recently in the national press.
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