Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been accumulating questions on other questions. Therefore, I may have lost some of my original questions in the processes. There are a few interesting threads that I want to take up, the first jumping from Ms Blackwell's point.

She spoke about the importance of action on this new national strategy immediately. It should start immediately looking at everything that is already in play and how it should be done differently or better and at things that need changing, rather than waiting for a new body in the future. That puts massive pressure on the organisations before us. One clear thing is that we have recommendations 37 to 41 in this area. We also have the letter we received from the citizens, in which they are very clear in referring to the Istanbul Convention and saying that is their vision. Some of that is covered by the recommendations, but there is that wider vision. In terms of being able to provide the services that are required by the Istanbul Convention, the fact is that we have a lack of shelter places and now there will be massive pressure because more women are coming from conflict and difficult situations in Ukraine and elsewhere. There will be more pressure and many more factors. However, the advocacy work these organisations do is crucial, particularly when lots of decisions are being made in a short space of time. I imagine, and hope, they are being asked for their opinions on many things. In that regard, it is about almost turbo-powering the capacity of organisations working in this sector to be a voice in respect of this suite of decisions being made at national level. However, even at local level there are many decisions being made as well. That is the wider question.

There are a few specific matters. The maintenance piece is very interesting. My colleague Senator Ruane has put forward good legislation to improve and strengthen maintenance, and it has been taken up by the women's caucus. That is a core area and it is an example of where people are dragged through the courts in a way that is often punitive and unrewarding and that retraumatises. I am interested in the court piece. This is where we all are awash with anecdotes. People are coming to us all the time. Regarding counselling, I know people who experience the appointment of psychologists by courts for assessing things. That seems to be a whole area. This is separate to the criminal piece. In the courts, one is torn between the counselling experience one has had in trying to heal versus a court-appointed psychologist. In some cases, I have been told that one party is able to suggest a psychologist and have that applied to the partner. There is almost the adversarial use of psychology and counselling, when it should be counselling. Then one is in that dilemma.

That leads to another issue which is, for example, where one is not sharing one's counselling records, things being said about it that are not true. I am thinking of people coming through previous traumas, such as the refugee process and people having won refugee status. Aspersions have been cast on their past experiences which are not true, but how do they demonstrate that? That is another part. We talked about the family courts and child protection, but another space where women are being asked to discuss their trauma is in the asylum and refugee process. I know that AkiDwA will be in to discuss FGM strategy, but it is a wider issue. The FGM recommendations of the citizens point to a wider issue, which is the experience of domestic or sexual violence, including for those who are LGBT. They are things that are perhaps not always necessarily in the laws of a country but are in the experiences of an individual who is seeking asylum. There is a really hard burden in respect of talking about one's experiences in that regard. Perhaps the witnesses will comment on that. FGM, itself, is an example of a form of control and abuse.

On coercive control, because the Seanad pushed to get it in I am very interested in how it is being implemented. I have a fear about the opportunity piece. Obviously, Ireland is limited in terms of sentencing guidelines. With regard to data on sentencing, on one level I can see that being very useful because it shows the patterns, but I also have a fear of it setting a bad precedent whereby bad decisions that appear on that database are used as the excuse for more bad decisions. We want to identify the patterns and to ensure decisions are not made in an ad hocmanner. It sometimes seems to be the case that it can depend on luck of the draw in terms of which judge one gets. We want to make sure we do not have one bad decision setting the precedent for another bad decision.

That is enough for now, although I have a few other issues.