Reports of domestic violence to the Garda increase by up to 30 per cent in December when compared with the summer months, newly released figures show. Gardaí received 2,568 reports of domestic violence last December, compared to an average of 2,000 domestic abuse reports per month during the summer of 2018 – a difference of 28 per cent. Orla O’Connor, director at the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), said the data reflected its experience of domestic abuse spiking in December. “We can also see that the scale of our response to domestic violence also has to increase,” she said. Ms Martin described the difference between the number of domestic violence incidents and the number of refuge spaces as “quite striking”.

Source: The Irish Times December 30, 2019 01:18 UTC