Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for introducing the Bill. It is a short Bill and proposes only one amendment to the existing Act. I thank the Minister of State for acknowledging that he will not be opposing the Bill. That is a welcome development. He asked us to wait for the outcome of the review, which is sensible. However, there is no need to delay the measure. I am sure it will form a parallel process. I would like to know what led to the review being instigated. Was it Deputy O'Callaghan's Bill, which was published in June? When was the review commissioned and when will it be completed? More importantly, the Minister of State set out the make-up of the group. I thank him for his frankness. There was no mention of representation from a woman's group on it. The Minister of State highlighted that it comprises representatives from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Courts Service, the Probation Service, the Garda Síochána, the criminal law reform division of the Department and so on. There was no mention of a representative from Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Network Ireland or the many other women's organisations. The Minister of State might examine that matter further.

This Bill is limited in scope. I am delighted the Minister of State is not opposing it. The Bill seeks to ensure that information and legal advice will be provided to a very restricted number of people in a very restricted way. To understand the context of the proposed amendment to the Act and to put it in perspective, we must consider a number of matters. The SAVI report has been repeatedly mentioned and I will highlight what it involved. It was published in 2002, which is a long time ago now, and it contained eight recommendations. It would be great if the Minister of State could confirm that I am wrong about this and state that those eight recommendations have been implemented. Recommendation 7 states, "That a systematic programming of Irish research is needed to inform, support and evaluate developments in addressing sexual violence in the coming years." That did not happen. I and other Deputies have repeatedly asked for an update of the SAVI report. The estimate provided in respect of the cost impact of such abuse was €1 million. In last year's budget, €5 million was provided for a spin unit but the Government could not provide €1 million to update the SAVI report. I imagine the Government would get much better publicity from providing money to update that report in order to enable us to have updated statistics. The National Women's Council has made this point. It stated, "The collection of data and analysis around domestic and sexual violence in Ireland is at crisis point." Orla O'Connor, its director, stated that because official statistics do not detail the level and depth of violent crime against women, it is impossible to determine the extent of the problem. She also indicated that our current system is archaic and not fit for purpose. The fact that my times is limited prevents me from quoting the other organisations which have also highlighted the inadequacy of the research and the fact that the absence of research means that policies are being formulated in a vacuum.

Some 3,120 participants were involved in the study that informed the SAVI report. An interesting aspect of this is that it had a 71% participation rate. We found that 47% of those who disclosed experience of sexual violence - that includes men and women - had never previously disclosed such information. They did it as part of this research, which was somewhat unusual. That highlights the quality of the research and the manner in which it was undertaken. It was based on quality rather than quantity. The study showed that the prevalence of abuse among men and women was shocking. It examined the position from childhood through to adulthood. Four in ten, or 42%, of the women reported some form of sexual abuse or assault in their lifetime. Over one quarter of men reported some sort of sexual abuse. The details of that are provided in the report.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to what is even more interesting about the SAVI report - I have referred to this previously - namely, that it was revisited by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre in 2005. The latter stated that the SAVI findings have provided an impetus for policymakers and service providers in this field since it was launched. Importantly for me, it went back to ascertain the long-term effects of disclosing to the SAVI researchers and it stated that the effect of reliving the experience of abuse could be particularly notable for those who said it was their first time disclosing. They said that the research was the prompt needed for doing so and that it was a positive experience.

In addition to the SAVI report, I want to point out that we have obligations under the Istanbul Convention, which we have signed but not ratified. Again, we cannot ratify it because to do that, we have to show we have a gold standard of data collection. We have signed the Istanbul Convention but we cannot ratify it and the major reason we cannot is that we do not have an adequate data collection system. At the very least, the SAVI report needs to be updated in order that we can formulate policy.

At the risk of boring people who are listening, I have repeatedly pointed out the cost of not treating domestic violence and gender violence. It is an matter to which I return with each budget. The figure given at a conservative estimate is €2.5 billion, which is the direct cost of not dealing with domestic and sexual violence. The consequences of not dealing with that include a lack of productivity, people not going to work, having to go to hospital and so on. On every level, therefore, it makes sense to empower women and men to ensure that they can deal with being abused and then continuing to live their lives.

I welcome the Government's approach to this Bill. I hope the Minister of State's request that we wait for the outcome of the group that has been set up will not delay this process because we have no choice but to deal with this issue on a psychological, economic and human level. This Bill is simply scratching the surface in respect of giving support to a very limited group of people.

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