Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Historically, the State is all about secrets. We have had mother and baby homes, industrial schools, Magdalen laundries and the hush-hush trips to England. Domestic violence is one of the last unmentionable secrets.

Men get hammered too, but for them it is usually even more secret. It is mostly women who get and take their beatings, and the threats, the kicks, the punches, the burning, the taunting and the raping. As I stated here last month, women lie on the floor grateful that if himself is laying into them, he is leaving the children alone, but of course, he is not. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, alluded to it there a minute ago. Children bear the invisible scars that show themselves in worry, anxiety and sadness, and, sadly, it is stored up for the future in which it will express itself.

We have all known the particular purple of a fist against an eye, the blue of a blow to a jaw, the hand prints around the neck and the branding of a woman. Women and men need leave to recover from that physical violence. They need domestic violence leave so that their injuries are not the social semaphore of their humiliation, their endangerment and their suffering. Above all, they need domestic violence leave to start healing the invisible injuries they carry inside - the terror, the disgust and, for some, a misplaced shame. That shame does not belong to the victim. That shame is wholly owned by the perpetrator.

The tenderest and the life-changing injuries inflicted on a victim of relationship violence are often psychological. I commend my comrades, Deputies McDonald and O'Reilly, on bringing forward this Bill and on bringing this subject into the light. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, stated that it has been discussed, and it certainly has since I was elected. That is good to see because the silence is how shame keeps living on. Let us not delay giving our citizens who have suffered violence in their relationships domestic violence paid leave and help give them the privacy and dignity that they need.

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