Member's statement: Domestic Violence

Member's statement by Ms Carál Ní Chuilín on 8 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Carál Ní Chuilín

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

8 April 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Domestic Violence

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4481024

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I want to raise the issue of an increase in domestic violence. I have been on the record in speaking about this before, most recently around the strategy to end violence against women and girls. In North Belfast, since the end of COVID, there has certainly been a marked increase. It is exclusively women I am talking about. That is not to say that men do not experience domestic violence; it is just that I am talking about my experience in the constituency. For women who cannot get a non-molestation order, for whatever reason, there is a certainly a red flag

through the process. As part of other debates, we had a discussion around funding, particularly for Women's Aid and that, and I think that everybody across the House recognised how important that was. However, there is an underbelly to some of the funding that is awarded to some of the groups, and that is that it is women, particularly in the women's centres and, indeed, the women who volunteer, who are supporting, accompanying and giving bespoke support to women who often find themselves having to get emergency accommodation not only outside their own constituency but outside the city. Women who have children are also navigating their way through social services and then trying to deal with the trauma of experiencing domestic violence. I will pursue this because, at the minute, funding is across at least three Departments, and women on the ground and their families are facing a negative impact as a result. We need a bespoke service. We need to look at the examples shown by the Grace Family Centre in north Belfast, the Falls Women's Centre in west Belfast and other women's centres to see the networks and try to give them support, because it is absolutely disgraceful that, in 2024, children have been lifted from their beds in the early hours and bundled into cars wrapped in quilts, and the support that they get afterwards is absolutely an uphill climb. That is something that none of us are happy to have on our watch.

348 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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