Domestic violence costs the country €2.2bn

DOMESTIC violence costs the country €2.2 billion a year but efforts to combat the problem will not be protected from any potential cutbacks to the National Development Plan (NDP).

This was the message of Justice Minister Dermot Ahern who was in the Waterford Institute of Technology yesterday to open a high-level national conference on domestic abuse.

Mr Ahern said while he hoped the Government could deliver on a range of promises made in the NDP, these were contingent on economic conditions which were not currently present.