By Elaine McFadden
elaine@letterkennypost.com
The need for a full time female Garda to be appointed in Letterkenny to deal with sex crime victims and victims of domestic violence has been highlighted this week, along with the need to provide Letterkenny with an interview suite for such cases.
At the launch of their Safer Community Campaign this week, Sinn Féin councillors set out five demands for tackling domestic violence and have made calls for sexual abuse crimes to be named as crime priorities.
Cllr Tony McDaid said that neither domestic nor sexual violence appeared on the Garda Policing Plan for 2007 at all.
“One in five women experience domestic violence at some stage in their lives and sexual abuse crimes in Donegal are steady,” he commented.
“Nine out of ten times, a woman who reports a sex crime to the Letterkenny Garda Station is attended to by a male officer and if they have just been attacked by a male, this is the last thing they will feel comfortable with.
“Letterkenny has also been recognised as a place that needs a rape interview suite for victims, to avoid many people having to travel to Dublin to be examined after their ordeal and we are working with the HSE on this matter,” he continued.
Cllr McDaid also said that it is essential the same Garda deals with a case throughout, for the victim’s sake.
“We are calling for a 24/7 female Garda to be on-call to deal with sexual violence victims and for that same Garda to deal with the case throughout.
“Last year, the Donegal Sexual abuse and Rape Crisis Centre received 2,299 calls to their helpline and 65 women requested accommodation from the Donegal Domestic Violence Service, with only 37 of those able to be provided for.
The statistics warrant that these two services be mainstreamed and they are operating on shoe-string budgets at the minute,” he said.
However, Cllr McDaid was keen to point out that reactive measures are not enough and tackling these crimes with preventative measures is also important.