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

The words "domestic" and "violence" simply do not belong together. Home not being a place of safety for a woman or her children should be anathema to us as a State and as a society. We see eyes the colour and size of ripe plums, but we do not see the invisible violence when it is at home - the sly kicks to the stomach, the spine or the labia; the bank accounts checked; the shopping money doled out; and the taunts about weight, looks, family or figure. That invisible violence is echoed by the State in how it abandons women in their safety needs, their housing needs and their healthcare needs, as we have seen with CervicalCheck. Even now, there are women worried about starting labour alone or getting bad news from scans alone because, despite the Taoiseach's earlier protestations, there is still no clarity or consistency in maternity hospital attendance. No chosen birthing partner is a visitor in a maternity hospital.

We talk a great game about equality and respect for women and girls, but what we deliver as a State is vastly less because culturally and institutionally there is the old residue that women deserve less and cannot be trusted. When women ring 999 in a domestic violence crisis, there is nobody to pick up their calls because terrified women making emergency calls are not important enough for the State's police force. They were ignored and cancelled. This patriarchal State is still deeply suspicious of women. You would never know what we might get up to. This State's mindset allows social welfare inspectors to rifle through a single mother's knickers drawer. Women no longer get the belt of a crozier but we can still get a right belt from the State when we are waiting on a housing list or in emergency accommodation or when we are desperate to get help for a son or daughter who needs a school place or therapy for their mental health.

This speaking time is given to statements on action to tackle sexual, domestic and gender-based violence. Given its own violence against women and in all actions it will take to tackle it, the State and the Dáil could do well to start looking at itself. It can start with the response to Deputy Martin Kenny's call for an independent investigation into the disgraceful scandal of the cancellation of 999 calls from victims of domestic violence. The action to tackle domestic violence and gender-based violence must start here in the Dáil, in our attitude and in legislation.

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