Back (from left): Deirdre Snoek, Department of Housing; Valerie Everard, TUSLA DSGBV lead for Cavan/Monaghan; Aidan O’Reilly, Department of Housing; Inspector Niall McKiernan; Chief Superintendent Alan McGovern; and Lisa Marmion, Services Development Manager, Safe Ireland; front, Deputy Niamh Smyth (FF); Siobhan McKenna, Tearmann Domestic Violence Services, Monaghan and Mary McDermott, CEO of Safe Ireland.

Search for site for Domestic Violence Refuge locally

The search for a site to construct a domestic violence refuge in Cavan or Monaghan is officially underway following a green light from Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien and Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, this week in one of the last acts of the current government administration.

The development comes under the national Zero Tolerance strategy, first launched in 2022, which aims to combat domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

Mary McDermott from Safe Ireland Domestic Violence Services Network, welcomed the development but said local authorities must take the issue “seriously” for the new system to work.

“It is written into the Zero Tolerance national domestic violence strategy that county councils embed into their county development plan a county-wide response to domestic violence. It’s in this context that Safe Ireland works.”

However Ms McDermott accepts it “will take time” to achieve this.

The process to develop a refuge in Cavan-Monaghan has included the involvement of both local authority chief executives CEs in the region. “The local authorities are very positively engaged in this process,” Ms McDermott acknowledged.

“The Government has produced a refuge design plan based on Safe Ireland’s ‘Safe Space’ model... Safe Ireland is working with both local authorities in Cavan and Monaghan and with Cuan to make sure that any sites that are proposed by the councils meet the requirements for a state-of-the-art refuge.”

Ms McDermott says the plan will ensure that all agencies involved can reach out into communities. “We can do training; and we can reach out to children and young people. We want them [refuges] to become centres of intervention and prevention of domestic violence at a local level.”

She said, regardless of location, it’s important both local authorities work together to ensure safe domestic violence accommodation pathways out of refuge “so they do not become cul-de-sacs”.

Ms McDermott highlighted the importance of those pathways in terms of encouraging victims to reach out for help.

“Refuge is not the answer to domestic violence and this is true all over the world; it is an important crisis point around which we can build a whole community response to domestic violence including safe accommodation pathways in and out of refuge. There’s a whole array of domestic violence housing that can be provided including step-down housing - out of the refuge and into the community; there’s the domestic violence rent supplement, which Safe Ireland worked to introduce during Covid-19; and there’s the use of alternative forms of communication depending on the vulnerabilities of the individuals and families involved.

“We see all this as the beginning of community, county-based responses. We are looking at domestic violence as a large-scale social problem and we need a systemic county-based response to it; and the provision of all the wrap-around services that need to be there.

“Safe Ireland has been very strongly supported by Deputy Niamh Smyth, Minister Heather Humphreys and Deputy Pauline Tully who are actively engaged in all of this.”

“The commencement of site selection marks a significant milestone toward delivering a safe haven for those in need,” she said.

However, she says it’s paramount there are “robust supports” in place for victims.

“At present victims and their families in Cavan and Monaghan have to travel unacceptable distances from family, friends, and community supports in order to access refuge spaces. That’s not a situation I or my party colleagues want to see continued,” added Deputy Smyth.

Her party colleague, Deputy Brendan Smith, also welcomed the latest development.

“I welcome this commitment by the Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien and Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee to fund provision of a new refuge centre in Cavan-Monaghan for victims of domestic violence.”