Subscribe
In the last decade, successive Irish governments have published national strategies, signed international conventions, and launched media campaigns pledging zero tolerance for domestic violence. State agencies and funded NGOs have echoed the message: support must be there for every victim. Yet in 2025, Ireland still does not have a single dedicated domestic violence refuge for men.
This is not a minor oversight or a question of scale. It is a systemic failure that has persisted in plain sight for nearly two decades. Despite mounting evidence of male victimisation, the state has never created even one accommodation-based facility for men fleeing abuse.
The basic facts are hard to dispute. Tusla, the state agency responsible for domestic and gender-based violence services, currently provides funding to more than 60 organisations in the community and voluntary sector. Over 20 of those are full domestic violence refuges for women and children. For men and their children, however, the provision is zero. No permanent beds, no state-funded safe houses, and no transitional shelters designed specifically with male victims in mind.
The absence is not due to a lack of policy frameworks. Ireland’s Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (2022–2026) promises “wrap-around services” for all genders and commits to creating “integrated local pathways” for both female and male victims. But buried in the Implementation Plan is a revealing classification: services for men are listed as a “medium-term priority.” In practical terms, this means that the government does not expect any male-specific emergency accommodation to materialise in the short term—if at all.
To date, the only example of state-supported emergency housing for men came not from the Department of Justice or Tusla, but from a partnership between the NGO Safe Ireland and the tech company Airbnb. Known as Operation Ruby, the scheme offered hotel beds for male and female victims during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was launched in 2021 and discontinued in July 2022. The state indicated at the time that it would “learn from the experience” and develop new models of accommodation. Three years on, no replacement has been introduced.
Even the rationale for this failure has become harder to sustain. In its public communications, Tusla regularly insists that services must be accessible to “people of all genders.” And yet, there has been no movement to create the most basic form of support—somewhere to stay. Emergency shelter is often the first step in escaping abuse. Without it, many male victims remain trapped in dangerous situations.
It is not the case that male victims are rare. While far less likely to report their abuse or to be physically injured, men represent a substantial proportion of those who experience coercion, violence, or psychological degradation in intimate settings. The last major national study on domestic violence in Ireland, published in 2005 by COSC (the National Office for the Prevention of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence), found that 6% of Irish men had suffered severe abuse from a partner. When minor physical incidents and emotional abuse were included, that figure rose to 26%. These are not small numbers. At the time, COSC estimated that 88,000 men in Ireland had been severely abused by a partner at some point in their lives.
These figures are now twenty years old. And yet they remain among the only nationally cited statistics on male victimisation. That fact alone is significant. Organisations like Men’s Aid Ireland, one of the few NGOs providing direct services to male victims, have consistently criticised the government for relying on out-of-date data. In multiple submissions, Men’s Aid has called for the commissioning of updated research to establish the true scale of the problem. But the state has not delivered one. There is no current national prevalence study, no regular data collection, and no strategy for including male experiences in ongoing research.
It is not just the Republic of Ireland where this is the case. In Northern Ireland, a similar neglect persists. Recent data from Stormont’s Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy confirms that one in five domestic abuse victims are male, and yet—as in the Republic—there are no dedicated refuges or emergency beds for men. Geraldine Hanna, the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime in the North, has described the situation as “deeply concerning” and pointed to the “crushing stigma” faced by men who seek help. That stigma, she said, filters through the entire system—from initial contact to service design and funding.
The stigma is real and measurable. According to the 2005 COSC data, only 5% of male victims reported their abuse to An Garda Síochána, compared to 29% of female victims. Men’s Aid reports that many of the men who contact their service are deeply reluctant to seek help and often delay doing so for years. When they do come forward, they face additional hurdles—not just disbelief, but a lack of any physical place to go.
This lack of infrastructure feeds back into the broader perception that male victims are either marginal or unimportant. It is difficult to advocate effectively for a group when there are no dedicated services, no reliable statistics, and no institutional pathways for support. The result is a system where male victimhood becomes invisible—not because it doesn’t exist, but because the state has never created the means to make it legible.
Some government officials have claimed that “pathways” to safe accommodation for men are in development. But this is not the same as a refuge. A pathway is not a bed. A pathway is not a shelter. A pathway, as currently used in official language, is a bureaucratic placeholder—an indication that something may happen eventually, if it aligns with other priorities. That is not good enough.
It is worth comparing this situation to the progress made for women. The women’s refuge system in Ireland was itself hard-won, the product of years of activism and campaigning. It took time to build, and it remains under pressure. But the political and institutional will was eventually summoned. Services were funded, facilities were established, and victims gained access to physical, practical support. The same has simply never been attempted for male victims.
Critics sometimes suggest that male victims should be incorporated into existing refuges. But this approach is both unrealistic and inappropriate. Many women’s shelters operate under models that explicitly exclude men from their premises for reasons of safety, trauma management, and resource constraints. Incorporating men into those spaces would not be straightforward—and in many cases would compromise the therapeutic environment for the existing residents. The solution is not to reconfigure women’s refuges, but to create parallel provision tailored to the needs of male victims.
There is precedent for this. In other European countries, efforts have been made—however modest—to establish gender-specific safe houses for men. Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands all operate limited emergency accommodation schemes for male victims. These programmes are small, often underfunded, and unevenly distributed. But they exist. Ireland has not yet taken even the first step.
It is also worth remembering that many male victims of domestic violence are fathers. Without access to safe housing, they may face the impossible choice of returning to an abusive household or becoming homeless—often without their children. The consequences of this extend beyond the individual. They affect families, legal proceedings, and the long-term well-being of children who may have already witnessed or experienced abuse.
The government has acknowledged this in its own strategy documents. The Department of Justice has repeatedly stated that the goal of its policies is to ensure that “every victim is supported” and that “no one is left behind.” But until there is even one refuge for men, this claim cannot be said to reflect reality. Rhetorical inclusion is not the same as service delivery. A reference in a strategy document is not the same as a key being handed to a man fleeing an abusive home.
What male victims require is not symbolic recognition. They need real, physical, funded support. That means refuges. That means staff trained to deal with the specific psychological profile of male victims. That means an end to the current practice of treating male needs as a deferred objective—perennially classified as something to be addressed “in due course.”
To date, the Irish state has not just failed to meet this standard. It has barely attempted to meet it. And while some may argue that resource limitations or prioritisation challenges are to blame, that argument loses credibility with each year that passes. A single refuge is not a radical demand. It is the bare minimum.
Until such a service exists, the promises of equality and inclusion in domestic violence policy remain unfulfilled. And male victims—many of them vulnerable, isolated, and disbelieved—remain effectively excluded from the basic protections the state claims to offer to all.