Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Public consultation opened recently on the third national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It is an important public consultation. Next week is International Women's Day. Today, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality began its work with public hearings to advance the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly.

Today I want to take the opportunity to remember the most extreme end of inequality for women, that is their deaths at the hands of men, femicide that persists in our society and that we felt so keenly in January with the loss of Ashling Murphy. At that stage, on 19 January, I began to put on the record of the Dáil the names of the women who had lost their lives over the past 27 years. Today I will read into the record the names of the 17 women who lost their lives in the month of February going back over the 27 years and the 15 women who lost their lives in the month of March going back over the 27 years.

In the month of February, those women were Fiona Sinnott, Catherine Hegarty, Rachel Sandeman, Nancy Nolan, Mary Whelan, Cliona Magner, Natasha Gray, Lindita Kukaj, Siobhan Kearney, Melanie McCarthy McNamara, Sarah Regan, Olivia Dunlea O'Brien, Deirdre Keenan, Sonia Blount, Joanne Ball, Mary O'Keeffe, Sharon Bennett. I also want to mention Marie Greene and Ciara Breen who went missing on the same day 14 years apart and who have never been found.

In the month of March over the last 27 years 15 women who lost their lives in this way. They also deserve to have their names recognised in the Dáil as part of our work to try to end this practice of violence against women. They were Mary Molumby, Sandra Tobin, Mary Callinan, Sylvia Shiels, Layla Brennan, Liu Qing, Joan Power, Rosie Collinson, Celia Bailey, Katarzyna Barowiak, Noreen Kelly Eadon, Deirdre McCarthy, Mary Dargan, Nicola Collins, Cathy Ward.

All of these women were voiceless in the violence that occurred against them. They were voiceless in their deaths. They were voiceless in the manner of the reporting of their deaths and how their stories were handled by media afterwards. They were voiceless in the legacy that was left behind them in what had happened to their families. All of this happened without any of their consent and all of it happened to them. I want to continue to take the opportunity to give them the dignity of their names read into the Official Report even if we can do nothing to give them their voices back.

The work of the third strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is so important. It is so welcome that it is now at the stage of being open to public consultation. I have seen criticism that this consultation delays the strategy but it is so important. If we cannot have the input of society into this strategy prior to its finalisation, it is not going to be as effective as it has the opportunity to be. We saw across Ireland the hundreds of thousands of people who expressed a view on violence against women, who came out and stood in solidarity with the family of Ashling Murphy.

We need to continue that work and not forget it. At the time, it was a big issue here in the Dáil and a big event on media that was given a lot of coverage. As we said then, it is about not letting that focus go, not dropping the issue and continuing to raise and follow it up consistently to ensure Ashling's death is not another death of a woman that is on the cover pages for a week only for interest to fall away afterwards. Will the Minister of State, on behalf of the Government, provide an update on this matter?

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