Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I offer my condolences and my heart goes out to the parents of Ana Kriegel. I saw them speaking yesterday and I cannot imagine what they are going through and will go through for the rest of their lives because of what happened to their beautiful daughter.

There is an epidemic of gender-based violence in Ireland and across the world, and it needs to stop. The Deputy asked what the is Government doing about it. We are doing quite a lot. We have finally ratified the Istanbul Convention. That was long overdue but it has been done by this Government of Fine Gael and Independents, whereas it was not done by many other Governments that could have done so in the past. We have modernised our laws around sexual offences. These laws have been strengthened in recent years through the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Acts and the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act, which makes coercive control an offence. We have changed our laws around consent and have strengthened them in a way that needed to be done. There is also improved recording of sexual assault and work is ongoing with the Office of the Attorney General around the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill. Next, we will introduce a distinct offence of stalking to provide for two offences to deal with non-consensual recording and distribution of intimate images. The Labour Party has been very involved in working with us on that. We need to ensure that proposed image-based offences will cover the recording and distribution of sexual assaults. The Oireachtas joint committee report will be considered in full once the committee has completed it.

An Garda Síochána is also continually improving its specialist services responding to the needs of victims. The Garda Commissioner is now rolling out digital protective service units with specially trained officers to engage with and interview victims. These personnel are better trained and know how to deal with victims of sexual violence. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, has also launched the No Excuses campaign, a three-year national awareness raising campaign on sexual harassment and sexual violence that was launched in May 2019. The campaign aims to increase awareness of sexual violence and bring about changes in societal attitudes such as those the Deputy spoke about, with the aim of decreasing and preventing these offences. I am pleased to say that a second burst of the campaign commenced on 2 October.

With regard to funding, Tusla has statutory responsibility for care and protection from domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. The budget for that has increased by 20% under this Government and stands at €25.3 million. In addition, a further €1.7 million is being made available by the Department of Justice and Equality to support 57 organisations which support victim support services, and a further €2 million has been allocated in the budget for 2020 to assist those services next year.

See this speech in context