Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to thank the committee again for the opportunity to present today on these important matters. I am very happy to take any questions.

I thank our three witnesses and stakeholders. We appreciate their clear and concise presentations to us. We appreciate the benefit of their expertise and their experience on this issue. I acknowledge that we are discussing recommendations 37 to 41 on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. We on this committee have taken the view that the Citizens’ Assembly has provided us with a superb blueprint for achieving gender equality. Our focus as a committee is on how to implement those recommendations. We see ourselves as forming a bridge between the recommendations and their being put into effect. We aim to recommend to Government an action plan to take those into effect. Our questions and our engagement with stakeholders are on that practical basis. We are conscious that members of the Citizens’ Assembly are engaging with us online as well, which we are delighted about. For the information of witnesses, I will also say that we will meet with other stakeholders on these recommendations next week. We will then hear from the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, on 28 April, at our next meeting after Easter. At this point she will have published the next strategy on DSGBV. We will speak with her about how its implementation will take further those recommendations, in particular, 37 to 41. We are grateful to all witnesses also for touching on other recommendations that have a bearing on gender-based violence. We are grateful for putting a clear gender lens on this pervasive issue. As the witnesses have said, it is an issue that has come to the fore particularly with the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy, as well as with other recent events as the witnesses described. We are very grateful to the witnesses again.

I will now ask for questions from members for engagement with the stakeholders. We will then come back to the witnesses for responses.