Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take this question and I thank the Deputy for raising it. Obviously, we are totally committed to tackling domestic violence. I will be bringing legislation to the Cabinet this Tuesday in regard to the domestic violence Bill and to the full implementation of the Istanbul Convention. Many of the actions required by provisions in the Istanbul Convention are being implemented on a daily basis under current legislation and administrative practice. There are 18 outstanding actions necessary to ratify it. They were published in the multi-annual action plan when we signed the convention on 5 November 2015 and they are also contained in the new strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It is intended that all of these will be delivered by the first quarter of 2018.

The domestic violence Bill enactment is a key part of going towards ratifying the convention. This would extend access to interim barring orders and give judges power to refer perpetrators to programmes both of which are required under the Istanbul Convention. We will also bring the victims of crime Bill to Cabinet on Tuesday next week. Once both of those Bills go through the House, that will be a very significant advancement, which will take us much closer to ratifying the Istanbul Convention.

The overall position in respect of the 18 actions which we need to fulfil is that eight actions are on target, two actions are completed, the other four cover the Bills I mentioned and four actions have yet to commence. Two of these actions do not arise until the convention is ratified. I can send the Deputy a detailed note on this, if he wishes. I have a quite a bit of information on it.

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