Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend everyone involved with this Bill. I also commend the Sonas refuge in Dublin 15 on all its work in supporting women experiencing domestic violence. I welcome this legislation and all its elements. I refer in particular to the stand-alone offence of non-fatal strangulation causing harm, expanded harassment offences, a stand-alone offence of stalking, the provision of court orders restraining certain behaviour and the introduction of procedural protections for alleged victims during court proceedings.

The Istanbul Convention recognises violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. The convention states that it "creates a legal framework at pan-European level to protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women". Under the convention, state parties' obligations have been categorised into four pillars, namely, preventing violence against women, protecting victims, prosecuting perpetrators and implementing related comprehensive and co-ordinated policies.

I compliment the new Garda divisional protective service units. During my work with Tusla, I had first-hand experience of their work and I cannot speak highly enough of what they do. The ongoing support these units have provided to women and survivors of abuse has been excellent and this has given women confidence and belief that they are being supported. In turn, they felt somewhat safer, despite the high levels of threats against them. As usual, however, we do not have enough being done in this regard, given the high levels of domestic and sexual abuse being reported and, more importantly, not being reported. I say this because we know the vast majority of offences, particularly sexual violence offences, are not being reported. This means we have a long way to go.

Turning to the prosecution part of the convention, every time we read reports about the experience of women in courts it is absolutely dreadful. I sometimes wonder whether it is designed to wear people down and to get them to the stage where they just give up. The protection of women is happening despite the court system and not due to it. We must do much more in this regard. We must also do much more concerning the housing crisis. We know many women, and many people, experiencing domestic violence feel they are trapped because there is literally nowhere for them to go. They are unable to leave coercive and violent relationships.

Laws are not just words on a piece of paper. They get their power from being enforced, a well-resourced system of justice and a well-resourced policing system. Unfortunately, we have repeatedly heard that there is a crisis in confidence in communities regarding their protection. Gardaí have spoken to me about how unresourced they feel they are. The recent experience in Cherry Orchard has shown how dangerous the situations are in which gardaí get into and how young gardaí do not feel assured of back-up.

I also raise the issue of rosters. I spoke about this issue at a recent meeting of the joint policing committee, JPC, in Blanchardstown. The Garda firmly believes this will undermine the connection between the community and the force. It was stated that new recruits are being lost hand over fist to other organisations. The superintendent admitted this was a problem. In fact, it was stated that a report will be conducted into the loss of recruits who have joined the Garda in recent years. This issue needs to be addressed.

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