Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I thank Deputy Howlin for sharing his time slot. I will begin with a quote from Women's Aid in the report of the Women's Health Council, as follows:

Violence against women in the home is a complex issue which is deeply rooted in gender-based power relations. It is socially constructed and reinforced by cultural, economic and social factors. Any systematic attempt to eliminate violence in the home therefore must be multi-dimensional and address the issue at different levels.

That statement clearly calls for a strategic and comprehensive Government response. The Government, however, has taken a rather curious approach which is not solely related to this issue. It governs for five years and then sets about publishing a strategy when it is going to the people. The Government did that on health in 2002, just before the last election, producing what turned out to be a fairy-tale fabrication of a health strategy. It now looks as if it will do the same concerning the national women's strategy, whereby just before the election such a strategy will be published, hey presto, by the end of March. That is a cynical approach and I hope that this time around, the electorate will understand that it is nothing more than window dressing.

We have a serious issue of domestic violence in Ireland and the statistics have been well aired by other speakers. Despite additional funding — and I acknowledge there have been improvements in that regard — we still have a core level of domestic violence that is unacceptable and dangerous. It will have a long-lasting generational impact. We know that children model their behaviour on what they learn from the domestic environment in which they grow up. Almost one in five Irish women experience domestic violence at the moment. It occurs in all socio-economic groups and is not restricted to any particular class. It is not just about physical violence because there are various forms of psychological abuse and terror tactics that can be very frightening. In such cases, even though no marks are left on the body, the psyche can be damaged and people are vulnerable as a consequence of multi-faceted abuse that often characterises domestic violence.

In the 1980s, I was one of the founders of the Bray women's refuge. In those days, there were no such refuges, apart from the one in Dublin. The Bray refuge was established by women supporting other women, without necessarily having any resources to back up what we were doing. We were not professionals but we understood the desperate need for such a refuge. We also had a plan to make the refuge redundant, whereby at some future point there would no longer be a need for it in Bray. Far from reaching that goal, we now have a refuge that is highly professional, well resourced, and bigger and better than anything we could have provided. Regrettably, however, it is not big enough. The Bray refuge has to turn away more people than it accommodates.

The problem continues therefore and, if anything, the complexity of the issues involved is growing. The growth of the Internet has brought risks, particularly for children. In discussing domestic violence, we must also acknowledge the issue of violence against children, their sexualisation at a very early age and the extent of violence in pornography, all of which feed into a culture of violence and aggression that can be damaging to vulnerable people, particularly women and children. People are shocked at the recent allegations about a paedophile ring and a 14 year old boy. Senator Kathleen O'Meara on her concerns said:

In this technological age, in the era of the internet, mobile phones, text messages and e-mails, parents feel their children are extremely vulnerable to the approaches and advances of abusers. In such a climate the under-resourcing of the Garda central vetting unit to examine the suitability of all those in the public service to work with children, whether it be with the very young in child care facilities or teachers at primary and secondary level is unjustifiable.

I ask that this matter be addressed speedily to allay the fears of many parents regarding the risks to which their children may be exposed.

It is clear, on considering the provision of refuges around the country, that there is not sufficient capacity and that the problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the housing situation is chronic. Thousands upon thousands of people are now waiting for social housing and people who may be at risk of violence are afraid to leave the family home because they know there is nowhere for them and that the world is very cold in terms of providing for them. This adds to the fear and lack of safety people feel.

Deputy Joan Burton, who chairs a steering committee to establish a refuge in Dublin 14, asked me to point out that it is an area with a population of almost 100,000 people that does not have a refuge. Apparently some progress has been made in this regard but it is important that the practical facility is provided to ensure that places are there when people need to run.

I pay tribute to the Labour Women's Council for producing a major document, in terms of analysing the problems and outlining the solutions concerning domestic violence and the provisions that need to be made. The document makes an interesting point in highlighting the changing profile of women at risk. Immigrant women are particularly at risk in the sex industry — a nice term to describe the exploitation of women. Large numbers of immigrant women are involved in prostitution in Ireland and men are making a great deal of money from the business. Women are vulnerable around the world, for example in India where millions of women have gone missing. Baby girls there may not survive due to neglect or they may be killed. Female babies are at a great disadvantage because they happen to be female. I pay tribute to Trócaire for raising the fact that gender inequality globally is often a matter of life and death.

It is important to point out that it is not only women who are victims of domestic violence; men also experience domestic violence. In some ways men are particularly vulnerable because they may be shut off from their children if they leave the home and this may not apply to mothers. ACCORD, the marriage support organisation, analysed this issue and found that, while women were subjected to more extreme forms of physical and psychological abuse, men too can be victims of domestic violence. ACCORD pointed out that frequently domestic violence is a mutual matter in a marriage.

We must reduce the level of violence regardless of whether the victim is a woman, a child or a man and we need to see practical measures to ensure that when domestic violence is experienced there are places for victims to run to.

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