Hawe family deaths prompted spike in calls to helpline

A national helpline saw a “significant spike” in calls from women afraid for their and their children’s safety, since the murder of a mother and her three children in Cavan last week.

Clodagh Hawe and her three children, Liam (13), Niall (11) and Ryan (6) were murdered by her husband and their father, Alan Hawe, at their home in Ballyjamesduff on Sunday night/Monday morning.

He also took his own life.

Margaret Martin, director of Women's Aid, called for an in-depth review of all domestic violence homicides "to learn" from these events.

She said women felt real fear and Ireland was "extremely weak" at providing them with safety.

She was speaking at the publication on Monday of the charity’s annual statistics where the extension of its helpline hours to 24 hours a day, seven days a week was announced.

“We have certainly seen an increase in the number of calls, a significant spike ...over the last week [from women] who have had very serious concerns in relation to their own safety and the safety of their children, particularly in relation to providing access.

“A tragedy like this is a shock to the whole country but for a significant group of women it sent out a huge ripple of fear.

“There can be very serious death threats. In 2015 we heard almost 1,000 death threats against women... being told in great detail about how they would be killed and how their children would be killed, or how their extended families would be killed.”

The helpline answered 9,308 calls in 2015 and heard 16,375 disclosures of domestic abuse - including 10,876 disclosures of emotional abuse, 3,281 of physical abuse, 616 of sexual abuse (including 212 of rape) and 1,602 of financial abuse.

There were also 5,966 disclosures of the emotional abuse of children by the mother’s abuser.

There were 579 disclosures of assaults with weapons, threats with weapons and being strangled or smothered, the organisation said.

Women’s Aid could provide safety planning for such women but said in a statement “what we need is domestic violence homicide reviews”.

“We need to learn from that. There are examples of this in the UK where there’s a whole practise of domestic violence homicide reviews. We don’t know what happened in that house but what we do know is there was someone who took control of four people and decided whether they would live or die, and decided they would die. That sparks real fear in women.”

Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, visiting Women's Aid, said she would welcome any proposals to conduct such research.

The Women’s Aid helpline, which has been operating for 24 hours per day since January, takes 41 calls a day and has answered 1,957 calls in the ‘out of hours’ service at night since it started.

The estimated cost of running the extended hours helpline will be €75,000 a year and the charity is calling for full Government funding for this.

Minister Zappone said the budget negotiations would be getting underway in coming days.

“I will be meeting Minister [for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal] Donohoe this afternoon and yes, of course, it is very important to get more money into services like Women’s Aid.

“The Government is keen to support families who are in distress,” she said.

Women’s Aid 24/7, free helpline: 1800 341 900