'There is no quick fix'

Update on domestic violence refuge for Cavan and Monaghan

The head of an organisation dedicated to combatting domestic violence in Cavan and Monaghan believes building a refuge without having established safe housing in place would be pointless, and risks harking back to a dark time of institutional orders in charge in Ireland.

“We cannot go ahead with the refuge development unless we have assurances on safe housing to move onto. Otherwise we're building a prison or something like a holding pen,” says Mary McDermott, CEO of Safe Ireland.

“As the history of institutions containing women and children in this country demonstrates, that can get very painful.”

Safe Ireland wants to see a “two county plan” for domestic violence response across Cavan and Monaghan, with a variety of critical stakeholders providing supports.

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To achieve this Safe Ireland is working closely with Cuan, the statutory agency dedicated to tackling and reducing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) in Ireland.

Under the third national strategy for domestic violence 'Zero Tolerance' there is already a pledge to support the advancement of new refuges, including one for Cavan-Monaghan. As such Safe Ireland is preparing to advertise for the recruitment of a new Domestic Violence Accommodation Manager, whose remit it will be to oversee the development specifically of a refuge in the local area.

But Ms McDermott warns: “There is no point in us building a refuge of any size or shape in either Cavan or Monaghan, or both, without an absolute assurance of the capacity to move on to safe housing. That's something we need assured. There has to be dedicated domestic violence housing for a whole set of reasons, least of which is safety. The next is the capacity for dedicated support and planning within services.”

To that extent she is counting on the support of councils in both counties, and intends to continue to work closely with the respective chief executives on the project. Her comments come soon after new Department of Justice figures show that, on average, gardaí were called to 130 incidents of domestic violence each day during the first quarter of 2024.

Official crime data based on the Garda PULSE system highlights that the number of reported domestic violence incidents have more than trebled since 2014. Outside the capital, last year the highest number of incidents of domestic abuse per Garda division was in Louth/Cavan/Monaghan, where 3,077 cases were recorded.

Whereas Limerick had the highest rate of reported domestic violence incidents in 2023 per head of capita with 123.3 per 10,000 population; Louth/Cavan/Monaghan came second (107.3), ahead of Dublin (106.8) covering six Garda divisions.

“Refuge is not the answer to domestic violence,” Ms McDermott stresses, who considers them a “crisis solution”.

“As the figures recently released by the gardaí show, at a national level in just the first quarter of 2024, there were 11,675 occasions when officers were called out to a domestic violence incident. So this is a national problem, at a huge scale.”

Ms McDermott worries too at reports that the likes of Monaghan for instance has the lowest amount of homes to rent (16) or buy (81) in Ireland. Cavan figures fifteenth (189) in the number of homes for sale according to a snapshot analysis carried out by Savills Ireland, and eighth overall for homes to rent (38).

“We see there's a connection there,” extrapolates Ms McDermott. “There is no ability, refuge or not, for people locally to access safe housing.

“What we are about is building pathways out of abuse, regardless of where you are on the social scale, regardless of the cohort you belong to, class or race, age, ability or family status. Simply that you have the ability to walk out to get the services you need to get out of an abusive relationship. Refuge is only one part. The tip of the ice-berg of a much bigger problem.”

The job description for the new Domestic Violence Accommodation Manager sits on Ms McDermott's desk as she speaks to the Celt. It is due to be formally advertised in the coming days and weeks. The appointment is an important first step for the organisation, which merged with Tearmann Domestic Abuse Service in April of this year.

Safe Ireland, she adds, is in the process of “restructuring” to meet the demands for how domestic violence is dealt with through current national strategy, but says: “We need local development and community development plans to respond to domestic violence across all the different areas.”

She concludes by stating: “We have to stop thinking in cliches. We have to understand this as a very deep social problem, a pattern of beliefs or behaviours that destroy families, and communities, and absolutely destroy individuals and children and adults. It is a deep social problem. There is no quick fix to this. If we cannot understand the nature of the way in which we privatise and erase and obscure all these patterns of violence and coercive control, we will not understand it and be able to respond to it.”