No Going Back – Safe Ireland Pre-Budget Submission 2022
SAFE IRELAND PUBLISHES PRE-BUDGET 2022 SUBMISSION
Safe Ireland has today published its Pre-Budget Submission 2022 calling on Government for an investment of €172.99m in domestic violence protective and preventive measures across ten government Departments. The submission includes some measures that will require additional spending, alongside others that seek a share of existing resources to be apportioned to domestic violence responses. Headline requests include a €4m increase in financing to frontline domestic violence services across the country to enable them to respond to the huge increase in demand; €1.7m for a Safe at Home Sanctuary Scheme which would allow some survivors to safely remain in the family home after the perpetrator has vacated; and €161m investment in 338 new emergency refuge spaces with special consideration to the nine counties with no units whatsoever. The document also includes proposals for preventive measures including €2.13m to be invested in quality research and robust data collection to provide a reliable evidence base for assessing the problem in Ireland along with a request for €.78m investment in preliminary local community-led response initiatives through the LEADER and SICAP programmes.
Speaking to the publication CEO Mary McDermott stated that
“Whilst €179m may seem like an ambitious ask, we would like to draw attention to the government’s Summer Economic Statement which stated its intention to make €500 million in tax cuts in Budget 2022. We are calling for a deferral of these tax cuts in order to fund investment in protecting women, and children, from domestic violence; and to mitigate the increasing incidents of femicide, familicide and infanticide that have become ever more prevalent. We are certain that there enough widespread concern about issues of violence against women that a tax-cut deferral would receive significant public support.”
Safe Ireland is also calling for an increase of €230k towards its annual core funding to enable it to scale it’s work in response to the exponential growth in demand for support measures over the past 18 months.
“This is a very important budget cycle for domestic violence” continued McDermott “as it is the first post-Covid budget for this Government since Ireland’s ratification of the Istanbul convention, and it also marks the first of three budgets which will be required to fund Ireland’s third National Domestic Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (DSGBV) Strategy the design of which is due for completion by the December 2021. There can be no going back to a societal tolerance of violence against women, and against children, and this epidemic must now become this Government’s priority.”
The full Pre-Budget Submission can be found on the Safe Ireland website:
Download as PDF: Policy & Publications – Safe Ireland
