Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. This Bill is very welcome and we will support it moving to the next stage. The need for a stand-alone agency has been very clear for some time. The epidemic of domestic violence, which was particularly seen during the Covid pandemic, has pushed forward the need to implement the third national strategy. There must be a zero-tolerance approach, as the Minister of State has said, and it is important that there be co-design and consolidation of all of the various funding agencies. I agree with what the Minister of State said in his speech in that I also have no doubt that every Member of this House appreciates the need for the State to step up and co-ordinate the response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

It is worth setting out the context of the Bill. The State ratified the Istanbul Convention in March 2019 and it entered into force in July of that year. That convention created a legal framework at pan-European level to protect women against all forms of violence. It aims to prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence. The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, GREVIO, is the independent expert body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the convention. It published a report, drafted by the Government, in July of last year. This report largely covers what the Government is doing or has committed to do in the space of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. There was also a shadow report submitted by the National Observatory on Violence Against Women and Girls later in 2022. This report is worth looking at in some detail because it gives a good assessment of the current state of affairs and where the agency and Government policy will need to progress to if the State's Istanbul obligations are to be fulfilled.

Broadly speaking, there are four areas that are relevant to the Bill addressed in the report. The first and most important is refuge accommodation. Over the past number of months, I have spoken with a number of agencies on the ground, including the Tullamore domestic violence agency and Adapt in Tralee. There are very significant problems. Some are related to the current housing crisis. I note that there is a great risk of homelessness around the country where women are the victims of domestic violence. The housing assistance payment, HAP, money is not enough, which is limiting people's ability to escape the horrors of domestic violence. In the shadow report, refuge accommodation is shown to be very important. It says "Refuges must be established in all 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland and easily accessible through affordable transportation". There are nine counties where there is no refuge. In fairness, the Government is making progress towards this goal but, of course, more can and should be done.

The second relevant area is that of services for victims and those at risk of domestic and gender-based violence. The shadow report states:

The State must ensure that general support services providing legal advice, psychological counselling, financial assistance, housing [which I have mentioned], education, training and assistance in finding employment, access to health care and social services, court familiarisation [which is very important] and accompaniment services are resourced and effectively available to victims/survivors.

On legal advice, we see what has been described as a shrinking legal aid panel. It is very difficult for many women to access solid legal advice quickly because of the absence of a large number of family law solicitors. The shadow report also cites the importance of trauma-informed training for service staff. As part of a whole-of-government approach, we would see this training extended into the likes of An Garda Síochána and the Courts Service. Progress has certainly been made within An Garda Síochána and we hope that, in the ongoing negotiations on the rosters, the worry people have about the disbandment of certain specialised domestic violence units will not be realised.

The agency will also be responsible, to some extent, for carrying out research and setting overall policy direction, under the supervision of the Minister. The corporate plan, for instance, must be created by the agency under the direction of the Minister and then approved by her, once drafted, before being laid before the House.

I note that, in the Minister of State's speech, he referred to recommendations that were taken on board following prelegislative scrutiny. We welcome the Bill's inclusion of several changes reflecting those recommendations, including the strengthening of provisions on stakeholder engagement, a provision that the agency will have regard to the diverse needs and circumstances of victims and another provision that the board's membership shall include persons with domestic, sexual and gender-based violence-related expertise. It is good to hear that those recommendations are being taken on board.

It was a point of contention during pre-legislative scrutiny, when many NGOs felt that there must be more independence for the agency. At the same time, the agency will be responsible for implementing measures to comply with the State’s obligations under the Istanbul Convention and accountability will therefore be very important. Will this compromise areas such as policy development or the need to collect statistics or assess the State’s own performance? For example, the wording of section 6 currently provides that the agency will:

...undertake, commission, assist or collaborate in research (including the collection, compilation and assessment of statistical data) to support the evaluation of policies, strategies and services relating to domestic, sexual or gender-based violence and .. support generally the effective performance by the Agency of its other functions under this Act or any other enactment;

It may be difficult and the fear is that it may be difficult to square this with the agency also distributing funding. The State generally can fund NGOs and other bodies which are critical of the State in turn, but when it comes to establishing the new body, we must keep that critical independent balance in mind.

The other main theme of the pre-legislative scrutiny was the need for a whole-of-government approach. The Bill currently says that the agency will act to "coordinate, oversee and provide advice and support, as appropriate, in relation to the implementation by public service bodies of ... [those] plans". There is no great obligation on other State agencies to collaborate and stronger powers may make some positive difference in this area. We can tease this point out further on Committee Stage and, as I have already said, we will be supporting this Bill through this Stage.

We have been in touch with relevant witnesses to ask for their feedback on the Bill also following the heads of the Bill being examined. One of the areas we need to see being prioritised for the agency is domestic homicide and familicide. We are all aware, I am sure, of shocking cases and the study into familicide and domestic homicides gives a figure of at least 166 persons having died in familial violence in this century up to 2018, with the State pathologist’s office telling researchers that a further 14 cases between 2014 and 2019 did not feature in the public records. There have been many instances of that, including in my own county.

Sinn Féin has long argued that family homicide review panels must be implemented with interagency collaboration taking place to ensure risk factors are identified. The study into familicide and domestic homicides is a good start and I ask the Minister of State for some sort of update in this area. The study recommended that a national database should be established for reporting on violent family deaths and for data collection as a whole. The compilation of these statistics is badly needed. We are sorely lacking in sexual violence statistics compared to, for example, the range of data available to our neighbours across the water. As I said at the time of the report’s publication, the Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Agency Bill provides an opportunity to advance policy in this area. Every second counts for families at risk of such violence and we cannot afford to see any further delays.

The data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, initial sexual violence survey of 2022 served as a sobering reminder of the importance of the third national strategy on this violence which remains woefully underfunded and under-resourced. Some 52% of women - and, we must remind ourselves, some 28% of men - have reported experiencing sexual violence, according to that survey. If Government parties are truly committed to a zero tolerance policy - I believe they are - we need to see a step change in the implementation and funding of the strategy. The agency will hopefully be an improvement in this area but the fundamentals of implementation, funding and awareness-raising will be the same no matter what.

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