Shortage of refuges meant domestic abuse victims forced to remain with abusers

The number of people who contacted domestic violence support services in Ireland went up by 40 per cent last year as a result of Covid-19 restrictions. Last year also saw a fourfold increase in emergency calls to services from domestic abuse survivors.

Meanwhile, one in four women in Ireland have been abused by a current or former partner while one in nine men have experienced such abuse. These are figures addressed in a Prime Time Investigates programme to be broadcast on RTÉ One television this evening.

In it Catherine Casey, from the Kerry domestic abuse refuge, recalls how "we have had women ringing in the middle of the night, whispering at the end of the phone. We are getting four times the amount of calls than we were getting pre-Covid."

Meanwhile nine counties have no refuge at all for domestic abuse survivors, with Anne Clarke, manager at the Offaly domestic support services, saying that "the midlands seem to be this blackhole – we seem to be getting the scraps from the table."

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She said that “coercive control is extremely common for a male victim. If you are a man in this country, you have zero options for a refuge, there is nowhere to go.” Women were the main domestic abuse victims “and that is why the services are directed more for women,” she said.

“Our service is different, we support male victims as well, percentage wise 25 per cent of our clients would be male,” she said.

Crisis point

Over the past year the RTE programme makers were give accesss to several refuges across Ireland as services reached crisis point and where staff described their struggles to keep abuse sufferers safe as, due to a shortage in refuge places, many of the abused were forced to continue living with their abusers.

As well as speaking to survivors about their experiences, the programme also addresses their often traumatic journey through the justice system.

Sarah Behan told how, in September 2016, she was assaulted by then partner Patrick Fitzpatrick. He pleaded guilty to charges arising and was remanded before the courts 14 times, followed by a further two appeal hearings. "It was trauma relieved over and over, and over again. It was constant, that I could not put it to rest, I could not move on," she said.

Fitzpatrick, who was an actor in RTÉ’s Fair City playing the character ‘Zumo’ from 2007 to 2016, assaulted her in an attack that went on for over two hours, she said. “He got one month that was it, a suspended sentence then,” she said.

A year before his attack on Sarah Behan, Fitzpatrick assaulted a previous partner, punching her twice in the jaw. That assault was not dealt by the courts until May 2018, when he received a 12-month probation bond. In January 2019 the remainder of his sentence for assaulting Sarah Behan was suspended. It meant he served two days in prison for her assault.

“I feel let down by the system really,” she said.

Male domestic abuse survivor ‘Peter’ (a pseudonym) told the programme how in his case he finally realised it was “not normal to be put down, its not normal to have things thrown at you, to be slapped. You are treated like, nearly like a dog. I did not see it until the end. You cannot help a person like that. You have to run, I should have run years ago. The warning signs were there.”

RTÉ Investigates - Domestic Abuse, A Year Of Crisis will be broadcast on RTÉ One television at 9.35pm on Monday.