Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill, which is largely technical and which makes overdue and important changes to how certain crimes are treated under Irish law. It is particularly welcome to see stalking as a standalone offence. A generation of Irish women are familiar with the realities of stalking and harassment. For too long, these cases and the perpetrators have been protected. The threat has been dismissed and, often, the victims themselves have been blamed or it is minimised. Street harassment in particular is often completely dismissed. Having a standalone offence for stalking is a very good first step but it is only a first step towards stamping out the incidence of stalking and harassment. There needs to be constant training of gardaí on how to handle these cases. While great strides have been made in recent years, it is still too common for women to have their fears dismissed when they bring accusations to gardaí. Indeed, it is not exclusively women and I have had occasion to advise a man in a situation where there was extreme and constant harassment. I told him that he needed to keep a diary and to notify gardaí. It is not knowing where it is going to go that is often part of the problem.

Of course, most people who experience stalking would never go to gardaí. This is not because they do not feel threatened but because they do not think anything can be done about it, which is why it is welcome see this change. In the past, I heard of one young woman who was repeatedly stalked by a young man where her social media presence was used to track her down, and she was tracked in public and also at home. The man in question lived on the west coast of Ireland and, on several occasions, he turned up on her doorstep. When friends encouraged her to report it to gardaí, she was told that nothing could be done because he had not done anything yet. The "yet" was a real concern because of what could happen.

That is the reality of the experience of many people with this kind of harassment, that is, the fear and expectation of stalking escalating into something more and the lack of power to prevent it because the stalking in and of itself was not taken seriously. I hope the Bill will help to change that attitude but training needs to be given to gardaí to ensure stalking is taken seriously. It is intimidating and it is harassment, so it is important that it is escalated.

While I support the introduction of this specific offence of stalking, I would raise one concern. I am not sure where the boundaries are in some situations. The Bill states:

(i) seriously interferes with another’s peace and privacy, or

(ii) causes alarm, distress or harm to the other[.]

It also refers to:

(a) following, watching, monitoring, tracking or spying upon a person;

(b) pestering a person...

(f) disclosing to other persons private information in respect of a person[.]

It strikes me that some of those descriptions could be applied, for example, to investigative journalism or to gardaí themselves. The Minister might address that in terms of the protections for particular professions. I know that would not be the intention and it is just to know where those boundaries are.

We need to provide education on several levels if we are looking to combat the issue of stalking and harassment, often against women but, I stress, not exclusively so. The Minister might address the issue of what training will be provided and what public messaging there will be to encourage people to report instances of stalking. There also needs to be fundamental reform of relationships and sexuality education in schools. Will the Minister let us know if this training will be provided to gardaí and also if her Department intends to have a public messaging campaign around this issue? Organisations that work to combat violence against women have been calling for this for years. We need comprehensive, age-appropriate education at all levels to really change the culture.

In November, the Government passed but delayed the progress of a Bill that we brought forward seeking to guarantee comprehensive and evidence-based relationships and sexuality education. The Government placed an amendment to the Bill that we put forward and it kicked it forward nine months. It is now 11 months on and I repeat the call that it needs to be dealt with. This idea of pushing something forward when it is never dealt with is very frustrating. We need proper consent and sex education to change the culture regarding how women and girls are treated and viewed in society. Very little will change without that and nothing will change without resourcing. I am acutely aware that my county and the Minister’s county are the two counties most impacted by the ratio of gardaí to population.

Every time the Minister is in the House, I use the opportunity to draw her attention to that. There is an inequality. While the deployment of resources can never be fully equal, we are not getting increases in services as our populations grow. It is just a reactive style of policing, but a proactive style and personnel will be required. It is not enough to say that the Garda Commissioner has responsibility for the deployment of resources when there is a clear issue of non-deployment of resources in areas whose populations have consistently been increasing rapidly for a long time. It changes the nature of the kind of policing that people receive.

In 2019, Ireland ratified the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, recognising violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. It created a legal framework at European level to protect women from violence and to prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against them. Despite that, there is a gap between the commitments we signed up to under the agreement and the policies and practices of the State. The standard set by the convention is one refuge space for every 10,000 people whereas Ireland only provides one space for every 10,000 women. That is a sizable difference and needs to change. It cuts the amount of refuge spaces that we should be providing in half and leaves male victims of domestic violence by the wayside. I have encountered people who have had boiling water thrown over them or have been stabbed. They are rare enough, but we do encounter such cases. People feel abandoned.

I will speak briefly on another aspect of the Bill. The maximum sentence of conspiracy to murder will increase to a life sentence. I welcome this change, which, I understand, is being done on foot of Garda investigations into organised crime, including the Kinahan cartel, in circumstances where the Garda has been frustrated by the maximum sentence of ten years that is currently available for conspiracy to murder. We are all aware that the higher-ups in criminal gangs do not often get their own hands dirty. Instead, they give the orders and let others take the hit with long sentences if caught. Without taking away from the agency of the people who were tasked or hired to commit the murders, there also has to be a recognition that the victims would be alive were it not for the orders. It is important that our laws recognise this reality and are capable of dealing with senior members of gangs and other criminal outfits.

I will endorse some of Deputy Mitchell's comments about what is often described as antisocial behaviour. It is not antisocial behaviour, but criminal behaviour. That is exactly what we saw recently in Gallanstown. That community has been subjected to it. What was different this time was that it was captured on camera. It is good to see a response. Too often, though, we hear people saying that someone is under 18 years of age, so they cannot do anything about it. That is frustrating. It is also unfair on those young people because it will only escalate into something more serious. When an issue down the food chain is not addressed, it tends to escalate. We should stop calling it antisocial behaviour when all too often it is criminal behaviour. Large numbers of young people, often only 12, 13 or 14 years of age, can intimidate others and ruin their quality of life. It is important that we get to grips with this. I receive more complaints about this issue than I do about more serious issues. It is important that we do something about it because it impacts badly on the quality of people's lives and they feel that it is not being taken seriously.

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