Mr. Don Hennessy:

I thank the committee for inviting me to speak. A couple of words that I want to introduce early are "crime" and "evil". I have heard one but not the other. Male intimate abuse is the most widespread form of crime in this country, but it is also the most evil form of behaviour that I have ever encountered. All of our efforts to deal with this crime have failed because of our ignorance, our tolerance and our desire to be fair.

Our ignorance is founded on our reliance on the victim to explain her experience while she is unaware of the covert tactics of targeting, setting up and grooming that are used by all psychephiles to establish and maintain mind control. This is why I call them "psychephiles". Our tolerance is founded on our ambivalence about male sexual priority, which is rife throughout the country.

Our desire to be fair causes us to misdiagnose the perpetrator and to fail to recognise his psychopathic terrorism and his sociopathic lying. It leads us to blame the victim and collude with the psychephile. It will lead us to be groomed by the psychephile and will inevitably cause us to wilt under his persistence. It will allow us to resist putting human rights legislation into our law and to claim constitutional support for putting property rights before victim safety rights. It will give the word of a sociopathic liar equal status with that of the victim. It will allow the psychephiles, who account for one in four of all men in relationships, to dictate our response. It will eventually lead to us doing nothing to solve the problem.

For a few minutes, I would like to put on record how people can do nothing energetically. The similarities between the report of the Task Force on Violence Against Women in 1997 and a mid-term progress review of the national strategy of Cosc in 2012 are extraordinary. In 1997, there was a clear need for more accurate and comprehensive statistics. In 2012, a lack of consistent information limited the capacity to respond. In 1997, there was a need for a public campaign to raise awareness and change attitudes. In 2012, there were no hard data available on the impact of awareness campaigns on attitudes and behaviours. In 1997, it was deemed that, through training, people would be able to work together. By 2012, no training programmes had been developed. In 1997, it was determined that health service providers should adopt written protocols in respect of domestic violence. By 2012, an assessment form with domestic violence questions had not been advanced because of the industrial relations environment in the health service. In 1997, it was recommended that specialist training be provided to the Judiciary. In 2012, the issue of judicial training remained a high priority. In 1997, there was a lack of comprehensive data on domestic violence, a void that the task force believed could be addressed by developing a code of practice for reporting incidents. In 2012, there was a particular gap with regard to data on the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence. In 1997, it was recommended that public and voluntary services and agencies work together to maximise the effective use of resources. In 2012, Cosc found that co-ordination on issues of domestic and sexual violence was at an early stage. If anything, its review suggested that the situation may have worsened.

A solution to the problem is to stop talking, to read what we promised to do in 1997 and to make a start there. As the President of the District Court recently stated in Cork, we need to ensure that the response of the committee becomes part of the solution and not continue to be part of the problem.