Victims of sexual assault in the mid-west region will no longer have to travel long distances for forensic medical examinations if a strategy published by the local health board yesterday is implemented.
The strategy on combating violence against women sets as one of its key objectives the "urgent" development of a sexual assault unit in the Mid Western Health Board area.
The health board has already taken some steps towards the development of the service by organising training in the conducting of forensic medical examinations for a number of doctors in the region.
To date nine doctors, five from Limerick, one from Clare and three from north Tipperary, have been trained. Others will also be offered training.
At present victims of sexual assault in the region have to travel to the South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital in Cork for forensic medical examinations. This burden of having to travel for such examinations in the 72 hours after a sexual assault would come to an end if a sexual assault unit was provided in Limerick.
Ms Sarah Togher, regional co-ordinator of Services for Violence against Women in the MWHB, said no deadline had been set for the establishment of the unit.
But she said the hope was that women who experienced rape and sexual assault would soon start to receive "a local response".
There are at present just three sexual assault units in the State - in Dublin, Cork and Letterkenny.
Ms Togher said the purpose of the strategy was to guide service provision for women who experienced violence.
"The objective at all points of this strategy is to challenge the culture of tolerance in which crimes against women are tolerated and trivialised within the region," the document states.
The strategy proposes that a range of preventive programmes be developed aimed at challenging social beliefs around violence against women, together with public awareness campaigns that heighten an awareness of the extent and prevalence of violence against women.
There were 250 reported incidents of domestic violence in the mid-west in 2002.
However, of the 109 of these reported cases in which charges were brought, there were only 42 convictions.