Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic. We have had a number of debates on domestic violence in this Chamber. As we know, there has been a significant increase during Covid, or it has just highlighted it more rather than there being an increase. Domestic violence and coercive control are unfortunately widespread. It is often hidden. The situations that people, mainly women, find themselves in are extremely complex.

Between March and June of this year, 21,000 calls from women or from other concerned citizens were answered by various domestic violence services. This is, unfortunately, a significant increase on the same period last year, but as I just pointed out earlier, it is possible that Covid-19 has just put it all into stark focus.

Earlier this week my colleagues, Deputies McDonald and O’Reilly announced that they would introduce legislation to create a statutory entitlement of up to ten days' paid leave in a 12 month period for employees as a consequence of domestic violence. This would just be one small measure to help and assist mainly women in this situation. There is a huge emotional, psychological and personal cost to domestic violence and it is devastating. There are obviously also significant economic costs associated with this crime. It is often due to financial and economic reasons that women find it so difficult to leave in the first place, particularly because there are often children involved and they are very worried about how they are going to be able to be provide, especially where the man has control of the finances or if they are on social welfare and are all part of the one claim. Situations like that require us to have a lot more common sense and need to be able to be dealt with much more quickly if a woman is leaving such a situation.

There is also, and some Members have touched on this, a direct correlation between domestic violence and homelessness. Domestic abuse is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children in Ireland. I find it so frustrating when dealing with people who are forced to leave their home, and in many situations that has to be the first step because it is the safest one and the only way for someone to get out with their children, that the man who has been involved in domestic violence is sitting at home on his own in a three-bedroom house while the lives of the women and children have been completely upended and they are stuck in a refuge somewhere. I understand why it has to be a first step but we need to get much better at dealing with that situation more quickly for women so that they can be the person to return to the home much more quickly than we see happening currently.

As legislators, it is incumbent on us to invest time and resources to create a framework and policies that seek to prevent domestic abuse. We must have a long-term vision to protect women and children in this country. I know, and I am even guilty of it myself sometimes when we talk about this debate, that we talk about the domestic violence services, but we need long-term thinking. We need to realise that we have to try to break that link, where if a person is growing up in a domestic violence situation and those issues are not dealt with, that person will carry that into his or her own adulthood and possibly visit it upon his or her own children. We need to realise and deal with that with counselling and supports in order that people can break that cycle.

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