Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on behalf of the Labour Party following the horrific killing of Ashling Murphy in Tullamore, County Offaly last week. I begin by expressing my heartfelt sympathies and condolences to Ashling Murphy's family, her partner and friends, and to her community, the school she worked in and all of those who knew her. There has been an immense outpouring of grief nationally at the loss of such a wonderful young woman, with tens of thousands of people attending vigils in Ireland and abroad. Her killing has also generated an immense outpouring not only of grief but of anger at the extent to which all women are subjected to violence or to fear of violence. It has reminded us of so many other horrific killings of women in this country. This Thursday marks one year since the violent attack on Urantsetseg Tserendorj not far from here at the International Financial Services Centre, IFSC. Our thoughts are with her family and friends as we approach that anniversary, and with the families and friends of other women and girls killed so horrifically whose names have been spoken in this Chamber, including Ana Kriégel and Jastine Valdez.

Ashling's killing reminds us that, as Women's Aid has reported, 244 women have died violently since 1996, 152 of them killed in their own homes. It has also served to remind us of the extent to which all women and girls are daily subjected to harassment, abuse, violence and assault by men. In recent days we have had an outpouring of women's experiences and stories being recounted. What is perhaps most surprising for me and many of us in this Chamber is the extent to which our good male colleagues have often been unaware of the extent to which we experience everyday sexism and microaggressions. While such violence is only perpetrated by a small number of men, the fear of violence is experienced by all women. All of us who have grown up and live in this culture have become so accustomed to changing our behaviour, assessing risk on a daily basis and modifying our movements all the time because of this fear that we simply do not question it any more. It has become something that is unconscious. We all check ourselves every day. Other colleagues have spoken of the mental checklist we do everywhere we go. We ask if it is safe to walk or cycle down this street, to get into this taxi, to jog in this park or along this canal. This daily checking and the constant need to engage in risk monitoring is instilled in us from an early age. It has taken a horrific killing like that of Ashling Murphy last week to remind us that it is not acceptable that we have put up with this for so long and that we are seeing our teenage daughters also take on this unconscious risk monitoring and fear. I am a mother of teenage daughters. It is simply not acceptable that women and girls in society continue to experience this fear and to engage in this constant checking and risk monitoring.

This must be a watershed moment. Many have said that, but we are seeing a growing realisation among men and boys of the need to step up to challenge sexism and the culture in which misogyny and sexism is tolerated and in which men and boys continue to engage in public places in sexist or misogynistic jeering, catcalling, harassment or groping of women and girls. A study today shows that teenage girls have all but stopped cycling in Ireland largely because of a fear of harassment. It is time to engage in a radical culture shift, to adopt a policy of zero tolerance against violence against women and misogyny in all its forms. We know that gender inequality is the common strand which we see worldwide.

In my role as chairperson of the Special Committee on Gender Equality established by the Oireachtas just before Christmas, I will be working with colleagues on a cross-party basis to ensure the implementation of important recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly. The assembly made 45 recommendations to tackle gender inequality, five of which refer specifically to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Here is what we need to do to build on those recommendations urgently. First, we need a Cabinet Minister, and I am pleased the Minister for Justice is going to take the lead in co-ordinating and implementing all strategies to prevent and counter violence against women. The Minister must urgently publish the promised strategy on gender-based violence. I know she has committed to doing so. She must also expedite the publication of the data we so badly need to build on the sexual abuse and violence in Ireland, SAVI, data from 2002. In parallel with that, we must also see the rolling out a public awareness campaign focused on prevention and education for children in all schools through the relationships and sexuality education, RSE, programme – with no opt-outs for schools, whatever their ethos. We also need a parallel public awareness programme for adults to challenge misogyny and sexism in all its forms.

In addition to that, we need to see the implementation of the criminal justice reforms recommended in the O'Malley report and committed to by the Department of Justice in Supporting a Victim's Journey. Two issues that jump out from the O'Malley report are the fragmentation of services for victims across the country and the lack of a voice for victims in the courtroom. We need to see really serious work on that in the coming months and ensure there is legislation to increase the level of representation for the victim in the courtroom and that addresses the real fragmentation of services and the inadequate supports in particular for victims of domestic violence and the lack of sheltered provision. We know we still fall short of the requirements in the Istanbul Convention.

We need a fundamental change of emphasis to address not only the flaws in the criminal justice system, to build on the positive changes we have made such as Coco's Law and the introduction of the offence of coercive control and the definition of consent. We need legislation to tackle the existing gaps in the system but, in particular, we need to focus on the education and the cultural change. We need to recognise that given the gender imbalance in this House, where less than a quarter of us are women, that we must ask male colleagues to be aware of the unconscious bias that persists through our system and the chilling effect on women and girls of sexism, misogyny, mansplaining, sexist comments, exclusion and the other microaggressions that far too many women and girls continue to endure day in and day out. It falls to all of us, women and men, in this House and beyond, to take a stand against sexism and to take responsibility for ensuring that ours is a safe and equal country for all women and girls in which we stand up to sexism and misogyny in all its forms.

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