Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said in reply to Deputy Collins, I was very pleased to have the opportunity to engage face to face with members of the Coll family and listen to them outline their experience and their suggestions arising therefrom. I am anxious to broaden that and involve research that includes other families and their experiences over the past number of years.

It could well be that legislative change will be required here. That is why my Department and I are closely monitoring developments in other jurisdictions, particularly in England and Wales. In those jurisdictions, a domestic homicide review is a locally conducted, multi-agency review of the circumstances in which the death of a person aged 16 years or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, neglect or abuse. These reviews were introduced in legislation in Britain which came into force in April 2011. The purpose is not to reinvestigate the death, or indeed to apportion blame, but to establish what lessons are to be learned from the domestic homicide about the way in which the local professionals and organisations work.

I agree that there are lessons we can learn from other jurisdictions and we are doing that.

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