Nightmare wait for rape victims as statutory system is 'falling down'

Two women who were violently raped in the west of Ireland had to endure a nightmare journey and a wait of several hours for forensic examination because of "a crisis" in the provision of statutory resources.

The traumatised Sligo-based women were redirected from their nearest sexual-assault treatment unit in Letterkenny, which was not open on the weekend of 18 November following the attacks, to the designated unit at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. After a road journey of several hours, during which they were unable to wash or change their clothes, in order to preserve physical evidence for the criminal prosecution, one of the women was subjected to a further five-hour wait to be seen by a doctor in Dublin.

"The system is falling down," claims Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop, chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. The centre dealt with a 28-per-cent rise in reported rape and sexual assault last year, contrary to Garda figures showing a decrease.

Rape crisis centres have been lobbying government ministers to allocate €2.8m to properly resource the four existing sexual-assault units in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Letterkenny and to establish two extra centres in the west and the midlands. The measures were recommended in a report published last June, commissioned by the departments of justice and health.

"This is a terrible crisis and it's urgent," says O'Malley-Dunlop. "These women are also treated medically at the sexual-assault treatment units but, because of the lack of resources, there isn't a 24-hour service. The level of violence is growing. There was a case recently reported of a women raped just off O'Connell Street in Dublin by three men when nobody responded to her cries for help. Our counsellors are telling us that the types of attack are becoming much more violent."

Justine McCarthy