Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not think there is anyone here who was not shocked by the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy. It knocked us for seven. At times like this, we become aware of numerous cases of violence against women in our towns, some of which end in absolute tragedy for those women and their families.

This struck a nerve across the board. I was in Strasbourg for a meeting of the Conference on the Future of Europe at which there were numerous meetings. The matter was raised by a Cypriot colleague at one meeting, and by Deputy Niamh Smyth, me and others. It was noted that this was a requirement for a strategy not only here but also across Europe and that there is a failure across the board. Like many issues that relate to women, violence against women is an issue that is often left to one side from time to time because something else takes precedence. We cannot allow that to happen here now.

When I first became aware of this brutal crime, like many other people, I said this needs to be marked locally even though I am not always sure that does justice. I, like others, offer my condolences to the family of Ashling Murphy. As I said, this should not be something that just makes it into the television programme "Reeling in the Years"; this must be a point at which we actually do something. That applies at every level, including obviously at a national strategy level. There is an absolute requirement on the Minister and the Government to ensure that work is done.

We all know the difficulties relating to people trying to flee domestic violence and we all know the financial constraints. We need changes at local authority level. We need to look at multiple means. We need to look at means of de-escalating really bad circumstances that gardaí come across. In some cases, a person does not necessarily need to leave, the situation just needs to be de-escalated so that terrible things do not happen. All these things need to occur.

When we spoke in Dundalk about the need to mark this, as a man, I said I did not want to look like I was politicking. I did not want to look like I wanted ownership of it. Whether it was right or wrong, I and others felt it needed to be a woman who does it. We all contacted Women's Aid. Anne Larkin from Women's Aid in Dundalk came back to us. She was obviously very busy at that time dealing with the regular issues with which she needs to deal. A number of us determined that there should be a meeting of stakeholders involving the Garda, local authorities, NGOs and State agencies to discuss what can be done at a local level. Cases need to be escalated to the State and non-State bodies that need to deal with those issues. We need to give space for that, accepting that we all need to look at how we deal with everything regarding WhatsApp groups and so on. There is a particular onus on men.

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