Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, I thank the Deputy for raising this issue in the House. According to the Women's Aid impact report, which was launched earlier today, 12 women died violently in 2022. These 12 beautiful lives were stolen and 12 families were forced to suffer immeasurable grief. I can assure the Deputy that the Government is utterly focused on delivering a society that does not accept this brutality or the attitudes that underpin it.

It is coming up on 12 months since the Minister, Deputy McEntee, launched Zero Tolerance, our strategy to combat domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, DSGBV. The pillars on which it is built are prevention, protection, prosecution and policy co-ordination, and it recognises it is only through a society-wide effort that we will achieve the necessary change. I assure the Deputy a huge body of work is under way in this regard now. Key elements include the doubling of the overall number of refuge units over the lifetime of the strategy so that when a woman needs a refuge, one is available. The local authority or the local refuge might now put somebody in a hotel for a week or two temporarily. This is unsatisfactory for victims and their children, as there would be in many of these cases. The establishment of the domestic, sexual and gender-based violence agency next January will bring the expertise and focus required to tackle this complex social issue.

Many of the actions in the strategy are focused to enhance support for victims. The provision of legal aid and legal advice, trauma-informed training and national awareness campaigns are all provided for. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is progressing legislation in this area to double the maximum sentence for assault causing harm, introducing stand-alone offences for stalking and non-fatal strangulation, and updating sexual offences legislation, including in relation to the law around consent. We all know the importance of criminal justice, of strong legislation, of reporting, of supports for victims and of a co-ordinated approach in our work with victims.

The fundamental weapon we have, though, in the fight against gender-based violence is, and will always be, prevention. It is that huge piece of work around bringing about a change in attitudes and social norms concerning what is acceptable. As part of this, the Department of Justice is looking to the successes of previous awareness-raising campaigns to produce new initiatives around prevention, consent, intimate image abuse and public awareness of victims' rights. This is a whole-of-government strategy approach and it includes society generally. For example, other ongoing actions in the plan include both updating secondary school curriculums at junior and senior cycle to include consent, domestic violence, coercive control and safe use of the Internet, and improving training for professionals and support staff. We have prioritised this issue since coming into government, but I know much more needs to be done and we will not be found wanting in that regard.

I agree with everything the Deputy said. We are in adjoining counties and the problems we face are identical in both and I am sure in every other county. The Deputy mentioned the point that something needs to be done on interim funding between now and when this strategy is implemented. As she said, nine counties, including both of ours, do not have proper refuge services. What happens is often very temporary and sometimes relies on agencies in other counties. No matter how quickly we try to build those new refuge centres, which are required and should be in every county, this is going to take a couple of years, no matter how we do it. The issue of funding, therefore, must be addressed in the interim because we cannot wait until all these refuges are built. We need capital and current funding to deal with these issues until we get the strategy fully implemented.

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