Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like others, I welcome the debate. The legislation was drafted and submitted many months ago and has been a long time coming. Others have noted the scale of the cancer of domestic violence, and it is important that we grasp that one in five women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. There is also a phenomenon of violence against men. In the course of my work, I have met men who have been subjected to the most horrific trauma in their own homes. Some one in five women will be physically assaulted by someone they love or once loved, trust or once trusted. This means one in five women faces fear and insecurity and is not safe in her own home. It is estimated that 213,000 women are living with severe abuse from partners, boyfriends or husbands. A great many of these women have children and, as Deputy Stanton pointed out, children are central to the debate because they are, at the very least, exposed to and traumatised by the sheer terror of this violence and may become the direct or indirect targets of beatings or verbal assaults. As legislators, citizens and human beings, we need to absorb the statistics as more than numbers. We need collectively, and in a non-partisan way, to resolve that this will change in our lifetimes and that we, as representatives of the citizens - men, women and children - will do whatever it takes.

Yesterday, I, like others, joined with Women's Aid to commemorate women and children murdered by their violent partners since 1996. These are citizens the State failed to protect. All these citizens would have had previous experience of beatings, threats and violence. We stood, holding a pair of women's or children's shoes - and there is something very intimate about a person's shoes – symbolising lives needlessly lost as a consequence of the violence and crime of the abuser but also of our long-standing collective indifference to this pervasive problem. Yesterday, we were forced to confront the low priority decision makers place on this social crisis. Yesterday's event was the launch of the annual 16 Days of Action campaign that starts on 25 November, the United Nations International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. It runs until 10 December which, as we know, is UN Human Rights Day. I was aware, even before the debate began, that some in Government had briefed journalists against the Bill. It is very unfortunate that any advance, however modest, would be underplayed or belittled because we must do all we can for victims, even if it is step by step.

The Minister mentioned the need for reformed and consolidated domestic violence legislation, and this is the case. There are many legal and administrative malfunctions and gaps in the system, and we need to see the legislation. I have asked, month after month, since the beginning of the Dáil term, to see the legislation. The fact that we will not see it until next year tells us this has not been a priority matter for the Government. I have correspondence from the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, in which he played the matter down. In written correspondence, he told me he had bigger fish to fry and other priorities because the troika had told him so. I have that in black and white. We need the consolidated legislation soon. I would hate to think we would go into another general election and await the next Dáil before it is brought forward. In the meantime, we need to do what we can.

At the beginning of his contribution, the Minister of State said he would oppose the legislation, and I challenge him on it. He has no reason to oppose it. Although he said it would amend the wrong legislation, it would do nothing of the sort. It is a simple paragraph, written, perhaps unusually, in very simple language, to amend the Domestic Violence Act 1996 to ensure a woman – generally the victim is a woman – will not be precluded from accessing her right to housing because she has been a beneficial owner of a property. It is very straightforward and comes from hard experience through the clinics of various colleagues. Women have come and described their situations, in which they cannot go anywhere, and are being told by their local authority to go away. This simple amendment does not claim to resolve the myriad issues around domestic violence, but addresses one of the problems. I see no rhyme nor reason for the Minister of State to oppose our addressing one of the issues. It would be one small step forward.

The Minister of State referred to the changes he has introduced recently and others very eloquently set out how those changes have not filtered down to the level of local authorities. Others very eloquently set out the experiences of victims of domestic violence, who find themselves left high and dry with nowhere to go, no shelter or emergency accommodation, fearful, traumatised and back in the home where they experienced violence. Why are the Minister of State's changes grounds to oppose the Bill? Surely, it makes sense that domestic violence legislation would echo, underscore and underpin the changes. It is a terrible pity, and we will call a vote at the end of the debate. It is most unfortunate and sends every wrong and negative signal that the Minister of State has chosen to oppose something which is sensible, necessary, modest and which, given the Minister of State's contribution, crystallises the intention of the changes the Minister of State has made to housing legislation.

As legislators, it would be wrong to think that an issue such as this can be boxed into a single piece of legislation. If we are going to protect victims of the crime of domestic violence, their rights need to find an echo and resonance across multiple pieces of legislation. Their rights cannot be set out often enough. I ask the Minister of State to reconsider his position. We are told we will see the consolidated legislation in 2015 and that Ireland will, hopefully, ratify the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on combatting and preventing violence against women and domestic violence, which was concluded in 2011. These are very slow in coming. While I appreciate Deputy Stanton’s commitment to the issue through his committee work, there must be more than that.

I acknowledge the report, but again it has to be more than that. We need changes in the law. Not least because of its own slowness to act, I appeal to the Government to support this modest Bill.

Some parts of the human experience are beyond the language of Parliament to describe. Anyone with direct knowledge of those who are experiencing this awful crime in their own homes will know that language is not adequate to describe the trauma and violation of basic trust these victims endure. In recognising all of that, I ask Members across the House to support Deputy Ellis's Bill because, modest though it may be, it is a step forward.

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