Almost 700 women and children fleeing domestic violence were turned away from a city refuge due to the lack of space as figures show the numbers of barring order breaches jumped by 15% so far this year.
In a presentation to the county’s Joint Policing Committee (JPC) by Cope Galway which operates Waterside House, manager Wendy Houston said 65 families had been admitted to the refuge last year, 37 of them accommodated on a couch bed as all the regular rooms were taken up. A further 288 women with 405 children had to be turned away.
“That includes the case of a woman really badly in need of refuge. We rang every refuge in the country. Eventually we found one in Lough and she got on a bus and went there which shows how much she needed help,” explained Wendy.
The Cope report outlined how 212 women have been murdered in Ireland 1996, nearly two-thirds of them in their own home and of the resolved cases, over half had been killed by a current or ex-partner.
Irish women came top of the European table for not contacting any service or organisation including police following the most serious incident of violence – the European average was 53% while in Ireland it was 70%.
There were 31 breaches of barring orders, safety orders and protection orders in the first ten months of this year – four more than for the same period last year.
There was also a jump in the number of sexual assaults, up five to 36.
Chief Superintendent Tom Curley said following an extra allocation for the Garda IT system, they could now identify if a number of calls came from the same house.
“If there is a problem in a particular house, we can pay extra attention to a particular individual,” he told JPC members.
Sexual assaults were examined very closely by gardaí in conjunction with outside agencies.
He said the station desk was the garda’s “shop window” and he endeavoured to make sure the right officer was on duty to deal with and injured party who “has plucked up the courage to approach”.
“We will listen and we will investigate.”
The policy of Galway Gardaí of re-contacting women who had reported a domestic violence incident but did not want to proceed was described as “very powerful” by the Waterside House manager.
Fine Gael Councillor Eileen Mannion said it was important that the message went out from the JPC that there was help available and she urged people to get help before they become a statistic.
A new refuge accommodating nine families on the site of the city’s Magdalene Laundry is currently being designed. Building on the €2.1m development is expected to begin by the end of next year.