The National Domestic Violence Intervention Agency (NDVIA), which yesterday planned to announce its closure due to lack of funding, has been granted a last-minute reprieve.
At a press conference in Dublin to confirm its closure due to a "lack of Government commitment" to its work, the NDVIA announced it had had a call "in the last 30 minutes from the Minister for Justice's office".
The agency's development officer, Gráinne Healy, said the call was "to assure us that the Minister greatly values the work we have been involved in in the past three years". She said the department had agreed to fund the agency for three months by which time a firm decision would be made on its future.
However, she said the situation underlined her view that "there is little or no evidence that domestic violence is on this Government's political agenda".
The NDVIA is a pilot project based in the Dún Laoghaire and Bray areas. Its work has been described as "pioneering in this State". The group co-ordinates the efforts of the civil and criminal systems and women's support groups while keeping the safety of the victim and accountability of the perpetrator central to the system.
It was independently evaluated last year by Farrell Grant Sparks and its work judged as positive. The report set out a number of options for its future, including the service being rolled out to a number of different areas or across the State.
Ms Healy said it was her understanding officials in the department had only read the evaluation last week. "This is all a huge disappointment to us and we hope they are reading it speedily". Ms Healy said the agency was accepting the "stop-gap" funding as the best they could get at the moment.
Don Hennessy, clinical director said he felt "very let down" by the Government. "The agency and the marvellous people working with us have been under enormous pressure over the past two weeks," he said.
A Department of Justice spokeswoman stressed that the three-month time limit for the interim funding had been imposed by the agency and not the department.
