Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank those Deputies who have contributed. Their contributions have been useful and informative. It is worth pointing out that there appears to be universal agreement in the House that this country needs operations such as domestic homicide reviews. We do not have them at present and every Deputy who has contributed recognises that we should. Sinn Féin produced a paper on this matter recently. That is indicative that there is support throughout the House for the establishment of domestic homicide reviews. They need to be put on a statutory basis. If they are not, then they will just be ad hocand lack the necessary legal power to be conducted in the way we want them to be.

I will start by addressing two legitimate points raised by Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Connolly, who stated that they would prefer if this legislation was pushed through. They were concerned about why I was agreeing to adjourn it for nine months. I will let them know my thinking. Obviously, if I pushed the legislation this evening, we would have a vote next week and I believe I would get the legislation through. It would then go to Committee Stage. As Deputy Ó Laoghaire knows, the Select Committee on Justice and Equality is busy at present and we would not be able to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill until October. At that stage, the committee would have to decide what witnesses to call for the purpose of apprising ourselves of what type of statutory scheme we should have in place. Necessarily, we would want to include people such as Ms Gibbons and others working on the review, which would have been up and running by that stage for five months. It would be confusing to have these two processes running in parallel. It may have been more politically astute of me to push the Bill on and say that Fianna Fáil had got it to Committee Stage, but it would not be tenable to have pre-legislative hearings in the justice committee in October where we would call witnesses who had presumably also contributed to Ms Gibbons's review. It would not be conducive to achieving an harmonious outcome to this important issue.

There is another worthwhile reason to delay this Bill. The reality is that, unless there is Government and, in particular, Department of Justice and Equality support, this will not get on the Statute Book. My hope is that, once we get the report from Ms Gibbons, we will be able to proceed with legislation and that the legislation I have drafted will be of assistance in trying to identify a pathway forward. I am sure the same applies to every Deputy, but I am not proprietorial about being identified as the drafter of the new legislative mechanism. It is about us getting this right.

Everyone recognises that this is a complicated area. As identified by other Deputies, this country has serious problems which can be summed up as "violence against women". People have highlighted the relevant statistics, including the ages of the victims. On many levels, we need to ensure that steps are put in place to reduce this violence as much as we can. I am concerned by the extent to which young men, not just in Ireland but also around the world, are developing their initial views on women and sexuality from pornography to which they are exposed on the Internet. No previous generation has ever been exposed to pornography to this extent thanks to its prevalence on the Internet. The Internet has had a major impact on commerce, education and knowledge. Similarly, I regret to say it must be having a major impact on the development of young people's sexuality. I do not know whether that will have a significant impact in terms of increasing violence against women, but it appears to be the case that pornography that proliferates on the Internet presents women in a submissive and malleable way.

It seems to highlight the control that some men seek to exert over women. Deputy O'Loughlin put it very well when she said control was at the heart of violence against women. She was correct when she said this was something that needed to be tackled.

The research that has been conducted as part of domestic homicide reviews in other countries seems to indicate that many of these vicious murders are prompted by events in a man's life which he finds humiliating. In the past, a man's financial or personal humiliation, or some identification of wrongdoing being carried out by him, has been an explanation - not a justification - for why someone who never previously got involved in violence got involved in violence. We need to be conscious that we live in a world where people can be exposed to humiliation. We need to transmit the message that regardless of how difficult or negative the news about a man is, he should be able to cope with it. It is probable that in the vast majority of cases, the perpetrators of these crimes are violent bullies who wish to exert control over women. We need to find out the information in such cases in order to have knowledge available to us that can act as a deterrent, teach us how to ensure we protect women in this country as much as possible and enable us to learn about the indicators of these types of crimes.

I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. I am prepared to agree to the amendment for the reasons I have outlined. Ultimately, this House should aim to have legislation in place within a short period of time. I know that it is complicated and that it has to be distinct from the English legislation. The draft I am proposing today is distinct. Obviously, there are domestic homicide reviews in the UK. This legislation is not based exclusively on the English legislation. It is designed for the Irish legal system. It is important that Ms Norah Gibbons and the Members of this House be aware of the need to drive forward to get legislation enacted as soon as possible to ensure these types of heinous crime are deterred in the future.

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