Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the Deputy's final point, there is funding available, and it will be part of the strategy to make sure we get that message across. It is important that we communicate what we are doing. Part of the role of the agency will be to work very closely with the sector in the way we have been doing. There is a campaign to raise awareness of the supports that are available and make it part of people's day-to-day thinking that this is an issue on which we need to respond and that we should not tolerate any longer.

As regards education, while the focus on children is important, so too is the education of front-line professionals. As the Deputy said, when a person takes the step to come forward and even before he or she thinks about court, we must ensure the first person to whom he or she speaks, be it a healthcare professional, a member of An Garda Síochána or a counsellor, is trained and there is an understanding of the trauma the person may have gone through. There is significant focus in the Supporting a Victim's Journey plan, which has been translated and expanded in this strategy, to make sure this is not just about members of An Garda Síochána and the legal profession but that it goes even further and we have a very clear understanding of what a child, a person from a Roma or Traveller background, someone who has been sexually exploited or somebody from the LGBTQI+ community goes through and that we can respond to his or her needs.

As regards family law reform, the strategy works with a number of different strands in place in my Department and across many other Departments. I mentioned Supporting a Victim's Journey. There is also the issue of family law reform. The family court Bill will be brought to Cabinet before the summer recess and the family justice strategy that will accompany the Bill indicates the very clear need to ensure intersectionality between a civil case and a criminal case. As Deputy Carroll MacNeill stated, so often the abuse continues into the civil courts. There must be a way that we can prevent such abuse from continuing. In addition, we must ensure that legal professionals and others, in particular judges, are trained to understand such abuse. That is why it is so important that we have family courts that are specific to family cases and that judges are trained to deal with these types of issues. We are going even beyond that in this strategy to look at whether we will have judges trained specifically for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

I again thank the Deputy for raising this issue, on which I look forward to working with her and other Members.

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