Women and children forced to sleep on the floor

A DOMESTIC violence refuge in Dundalk, Co Louth, is predicting a shocking 90% increase in the number of times it will have turned away women and children this year because it was full.

Service manager Lisa Marmion said the refuge turned down 111 requests for accommodation last year. The refuge, which has five family rooms with 23 spaces for adults and children, accommodated 102 women and 126 children last year.

Sometimes, because of the demand on space, women and children have to sleep on mattresses on the floor.

Ms Marmion said the refuge was hoping to expand so it would have a total of eight family rooms and 37 spaces, but that depended on the funding being available.

Ms Marmion said the refuge was a crisis-intervention service and responded on the basis of need. No caller was assessed and no waiting list was kept. She said the 90% increase on figures for women who couldn’t be accommodated was based on demand up to the end of the summer.

“The 90% increase, even compared to last year’s figures, is huge. So far this year, we have received 150 requests that we could not accommodate,” she said. “It has to be difficult for women in a refuge who find out that have got the last room available, although that is something we do try to hide from them.”

Ms Marmion said staff at the refuge tried to do as much as they could for callers who could not be accommodated. Some callers, however, just hung up after being told there was no room available.

“It is frustrating because the help we can give in those cases is so limited and we often wonder if a woman who rang the refuge is the same woman who is in the news the following day,” she said.