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A WEST CORK domestic violence charity has purchased its first-ever safe house after receiving a private donation of €400,000.
After years of campaigning, the West Cork Women Against Violence Project (WCWAV) said the donation allowed them to purchase a property that will be used to give families fleeing domestic violence a place of safety, shelter and support.
“The purchase of a suitable house is a vital step on our journey to keep women and children in West Cork safe from violence,” said WCWAV coordinator Marie Mulholland.
“We will be able to provide safe and comfortable accommodation to a woman and her children when they need it most.”
She thanked the private donor for their “overwhelming generosity” and for allowing the project’s “long-held vision and goal” of establishing a safe house in West Cork become a reality.
Prior to the donation, Mulholland said WCWAV had been reliant on the refuge in Cork city.
She said it only had enough space for six families and “that’s for the largest county in Ireland. It’s the only refuge”.
However, due to the pandemic, it can now only accommodate three families.
‘Shadow pandemic’
Mulholland said the lack of safe emergency accommodation for victims of domestic violence is of national concern, but that situation is particularly dire for women in rural Ireland.
“Ireland’s emergency accommodation capacity for domestic violence has been way below par, so there is some major catching up to be done,” Mulholland said.
“In the meantime, we’re still getting inundated with women and children, and some men, who are in need of emergency accommodation because they’re escaping violence in their own homes.
“The situation for rural women and children in need of safety is exacerbated by the challenges of rural life in West Cork; isolation, long distances to the city and the limited capacity of the refuge there, lack of public transport and the dangers presented when women flee their violent partners.”
Mulholland told TheJournal.ie that she gave a presentation to the local county council over two years ago about the need for a safe house for victims of domestic violence in West Cork. She said WCWAV was told it would have to join the housing waiting list.
A few months ago the project secured funding after it was invited by The Community Foundation for Ireland, along with other charities, to apply for the private donation.
The organisation says it works with individuals and families, corporations and charitable agencies to ”turn aspirations into effective investments”.
The Community Foundation for Ireland’s chief executive, Denise Charlton, said the donor was “passionate about providing accessible local support to victims of abuse” and that WCWAV’s project “absolutely fits in with that goal”.
Mulholland said if the donation hadn’t come, “we wouldn’t be any farther on.”
WCWAV’s initial plan was to buy a large house, one that could accommodate a couple of families, but due to Covid-19, it opted for a smaller option. It plans to use the remaining funding to buy a second small property to provide another safe space.
During a Dáil debate on the impact of the pandemic on women last week, West Cork TD Holly Cairns said WCWAV had received a 35% increase in calls since last March, and warned that domestic violence had become “the shadow pandemic”
According to provisional figures for 2020, gardaí received approximately 43,000 calls to respond to domestic abuse incidents – a 16% increase on 2019, while the number of criminal charges brought for alleged crimes related to domestic abuse rose by 24% to 7,600.
Mulholland said “nobody’s coming forward” with a plan or other resources and “in the meantime, people are desperate for somewhere safe to go with their children in order to get away from violence”.
Long before Covid-19 this was a problem. The pandemic has just highlighted and exacerbated it.
Last month, the Department of Social Protection extended access to rent supplements for victims of domestic violence to the end of the year.
When an application is made, a rent supplement can be provided for an initial three-month period and the usual means test does not apply. The applicant has to pay a minimum contribution to the rent for this period.
After the first three months, provision is made for a further three-month period of rent supplement without a means test. Where necessary, engagement is made with the person’s local authority over a longer-term housing solution.
WCWAV’s freephone helpline can be reached on 1800 203 136 and further information available can be read here.
Other helplines/advice:
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Chemical free glue???
@Ding Ding Denny: was just going to say, the glue is probably hydro carbon based
@Ding Ding Denny: You didn’t notice all the man-made fibre tents in the pictures? Yes the protesters are using the goods manufactured for the consumer of today, just like people flying to Climate Change conferences it is not hypocritical, if they can affect change the change they cause would far outweigh the damage they have done by using tents made of man-made fibre or chemical glues.
@Diarmuid Hunt: that’s a big if
@Stephen Brady: It is, can’t blame them for trying, sitting idly by definitely isn’t going to change anything.
@Diarmuid Hunt: But the tents are re-usable and last long term… that’s kind of the entire point.
Thats like you calling an environmental activist who reuses the same water bottle for 10 years a hypocrite
@Vin: I never called them hypocrites, I’m pointing out the stupidity of calling climate activists hypocrites for using modern technology as a means to an end, read past the first line of my comment.
@Ding Ding Denny: hopefully they didn’t use the oil derived glue but that made from animal parts. That way they’d be reducing carbon emissions.
Crusties! Well said Bojo!
Knew they were stuck up!
Bring in a JCB, sorted
A bunch of lunatics
@Gisbert Bayertz: The thing about this is when we’re presented with this message in a calm, rational manner, shown the science in a way we can understand, ideally with a voiceover by Sir David Attenborough. Then we’re sold, no need to do any more.
We’ll happily give up all our plastic packaging, we’ll recycle to our hearts content, we’ll clean our beaches and save our tiny animals and even our creepy crawly critters.
The problem begins with what we perceive to be the usual “rent a mob” telling us that we MUST do all the above, most of us will agree with Boris Johnston’s description of them as “unco-operative crusties”. We see the rich and famous like Emma Thompson who will make appearances at events like this, then think nothing of hopping on a plane to fly first class across the Atlantic. No weeks roughing it on a boat for them.
One protester walked out of a Sky interview when he kept insisting how much he cared about the planet and the people on it and wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. Sky’s Adam Boulton pointed out that parliament wasn’t even sitting so all they’d achieved was to cause disruption for everyone else.
It’s the perceived hypocrisy of a bunch of jumped up kids, each of them with the latest mobile phones and never far from a WiFi hotspot telling the rest of us what we have to do. The majority of those protestors will move on next year to protest again at the next virtuous, noble cause. They just happen to be right, this time.
@Arch Angel: Are you for real? Rational arguments backed up by science have been made for years and there hasn’t been enough change made. The reason you’re seeing radical protest is because there hasn’t been enough action on climate change.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I said we get it, I never claimed politicians get it.
@Arch Angel: I don’t know, I understand that you and I get it but I don’t think we speak for the entire populace. Awareness has definitely grown and is going in the right direction but I don’t think that it is as widespread as you think.
@Diarmuid Hunt: You have a point, in which case it may be fair to say those who are going to get the argument have already done so, some will never get it.
These protests by “unco-operative crusties” who seem to make a hobby of protesting from one virtuous cause to the next are doing very little to further their cause and only serve to antagonise people.
@Arch Angel: Possibly, from reading The Journal it does seem to be having a detrimental effect to their cause judging by the reactions of some people and the amount of likes they’re getting. Then again how good is The Journal comment section as a metre stick for the attitude around this? I know you point at the forever-protesters and there will be an element of that in any protest
, you have said that this time they are right, a stopped clock and all that, but some people will latch on to that side of things rather than look at the merits of this particular protest. Any protest should be weighed on its merit and not on whether forever-protesters are present.
@Arch Angel: except David Attenborough has been asking us for years to change and to listen to the scientists and you haven’t listened to him either so the rest of your point is moot.
Tents wont be up to much when they rip them back up.
Does using public money for personal pleasure get you arrested
A good bateing is required
@Michael Wynne: I hear you give a master bateing yourself.
have your say