Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom mo chomhbhrón ó chroí a thabhairt do chlann, do chairde agus do phobal Ashling Murphy. Ba bhean eile í ar tógadh i gcás uafásach í. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis. Over the past week, many words have been used to describe how the women of Ireland feel following Ashling's horrific murder, including "frightened", "angry", "worn out" and "tired". All of these things are true. We are again overwhelmed by the violation, pain and loss caused by the epidemic of male violence that blights our lives every single day. Generations of Irish women have been forced to live alongside this abuse, behind closed doors at home and in public spaces.

Physical violence and emotional coercive control represent the shared experience of far too many women. All week, we have listened to women share their stories; women who have been subjected to violence, harassment or abuse at the hands of men. The vast majority of these cases were never reported or officially recorded. In that respect, we are still dealing with an unmeasured, if not unspoken, crisis.

The fact is that violence against and emotional abuse of women are systemic. Yes, women are afraid, not of our surroundings or the time of the day or night, but of violent and abusive men. These men target us in our own homes, on the street, in our workplaces, on the bus and in the pub. Women are afraid because our lives may be on the line. Hundreds of women in Ireland have died violently. Hundreds of lives have been cut short in the most devastating way. Last Wednesday, Ashling Murphy, sadly, was added to that toll. Ashling, a young woman of 23, was attacked by a man while out for a run in broad daylight in a public space. She was in a public space and, yet, violence still found her. This is why women and girls have been afraid forever.

The truth is that women have the right to be safe, no matter what we are doing or where we are. We have the right to be safe on the bus after work or on a night out partying. We have a right to be safe in the shopping centre or walking home having spent the night with friends. We have the right to be safe working out in the gym and in our workplaces and homes.

How and where we choose to live our lives or spend our time or how we decide to dress is irrelevant, the length of our skirt or how we wear a top is not an invitation to grope us, women having fun in a nightclub is not a signal to rape us, walking or jogging alone is not a green light to murder us, and yet the warped and twisted logic of misogyny conjures up this notion that a woman is asking for it. Asking for what exactly - to have our lives shattered, to be traumatised, to die? What we are asking for and, indeed, what we demand is that men stop inflicting awful violence on us.

Over the past seven days, I have heard contributions to the discussion that focused on what women might do to stay safe. Ideas range from new apps to the provision of cans of Mace to every woman in the country. This misses the point completely because women do everything they can to stay safe. Most of us have our mental checklist - the car keys between the fingers, pretending we are on the phone when we think we are being followed, changing our route home, taking self-defence classes. Women do all of these things and more and yet horrible violence finds us. Why? Because the problem is not the behaviour in decisions of women. The problem is violent and abusive men. Nobody ever said, by the way, that it is all men but it is certainly far too many.

The truth is that violence against women, including coercive control, is demonstrably a male problem - a problem that men must be central to solving. Men must acknowledge the problem and play their part in changing things, and that means speaking out against the systemic culture of misogyny and sexism that has dogged women for generations. It means becoming allies of women in creating real change and raising all of our sons to be better and to view and treat all women as their equals.

This terrible moment must spark real change in our society but we cannot do it without a Government that is truly committed to ending violence against women. Service providers tell us that they struggle to cope due to cuts in funding and at the very least we should ensure that every rape crisis centre has enough funding to answer every call.

There are things that Government can do today to make things better. The first is to commit to fully implement, resource and support the third strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence when it is published in March. We in Sinn Féin have also called for the establishment of a unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to co-ordinate the decision-making, policy and legislation that is currently, as has been conceded, so fragmented across Departments and Government agencies. The role of this unit would be to co-ordinate and ensure that Departments deliver on their responsibilities under the national strategy.

We also need better data on gender-based crime and we need the sexual violence survey to be fast-tracked. We need the full implementation of the domestic homicide review to be prioritised. Hundreds of women have been killed in their own homes - that place that should be our sanctuary.

In the area of domestic violence, the Government must face up to the crisis in refuge provision. Ireland has only one third of the refuge places we are obliged to provide for under the Istanbul Convention and nine counties have no refuge place at all. The Government must publish the Tusla review of emergency accommodation that is on the Minister's desk and follow up with the investment needed to dramatically increase refuge places, including the wrap-around services such as counselling and childcare.

I would also urge Government parties to support Sinn Féin's domestic violence paid leave Bill, which is due before the Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth next week. This is robust legislation modelled on existing employment rights and reflects provisions already in place in public and private organisations, such as NUI Galway, Vodafone and Danske Bank.

Women and girls are rightly sick of politicians promising change but never following through. Is anois an t-am do cheannaireacht agus do ghníomh. Ní leor deora agus ómós. Teastaíonn gníomh práinneach anois chun deireadh a chur le foréigean in aghaidh na mban. We cannot mourn and then allow violence against women to slip off the agenda once again. We cannot wait until another woman lies dead leaving behind a heartbroken family. To make the words "Enough is enough" real, to show we mean it, change must flow like a river. Women are fed up and worn out but, make no mistake, women are also fired up, determined and resolute.

We stand here today in remembrance of every woman violently killed. These women challenge those in power. They challenge all of us to act. Their message is "Forget me not and act". Remembering what we have lost must help to save what we cannot abide to lose again; another mother, another sister, another daughter, another friend, another woman. Their lives cannot become footnotes on a page or statistics in a report. Their lives mattered and their deaths matter too.

At this moment, here in this place a line must be drawn in the sand in order that today, I hope, would be remembered as the day when the Dáil finally came together to end violence against women to build a better future for a new generation. We cannot wait another day to make this happen. The women of Ireland have waited long enough and have paid far too heavy a price.

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