Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to speak on this Bill and my party will be supporting its passage to Committee Stage. I wish to mention Teach Tearmainn in County Kildare, which is a refuge that offers free, confidential and invaluable support to women and children across County Kildare and parts of County Wicklow. It also offers refuge when women and their children are ready for it and they have the confidence and support to take this step.

Women bear the brunt of gender-based violence. There is no doubt about this at all, but men also experience it. These are often good men whose partners know they are safe, insofar as they are not going to get hit back. Just the day before yesterday, I got a reply to a parliamentary question concerning what services were available in north Kildare for a male victim of domestic violence. This is the second person who has come to me in this regard. I know it is mainly women affected, but what I asked was a simple question in respect of a location. Instead of a list of services, I got a long list of all the funding and State-wide projects. A line at the end of the response said my question had been passed on to Tusla for a direct answer.

This is why I worry about this new plan, as I do with all plans from this Government, to be honest. I say this because spending on services is not the same as providing services. When it comes to this new agency and to DSGBV, the physical, emotional and psychological need for these services is all too real, all too urgent and all too long overdue. This is the case for my male constituent who has been a victim of domestic violence and has nowhere to go to be safe and to recover.

The policy and detail of this Bill are clear enough. The issue, as usual, is how all or any of the provisions in this legislation will make it off the policy page and into community action and how any of it will make it from agency aspiration to actual experience. For this Government, in particular, right across the board, the gap between policy and practice is where people wait and suffer, and, in some cases, and certainly when it comes to DSGBV, die.

There is too much pain and suffering from DSGBV for the provisions of this Bill and the work of this agency to remain out there in the ether as opposed to being felt in the community and in individual lives. It is great to aspire to inter-agency co-operation but I would like to see a situation whereby agencies can be compelled to collaborate on a whole-of-government basis.

We also need the sheer practicality of more and better Garda training on these issues, which were once so marginal and are now mainstream. Gardaí need to be trained on how to answer telephone calls from victims. We still have situations such as that brought to my attention by a constituent of mine, whereby 365 abuse allegations, one for every day of the year, were not notified to the Garda. Systems do not fail; the Government fails and people fail. There must be infinitely better oversight and accountability, both within Tusla, in terms of how people work, and of Tusla to the Government and the people.

As usual, the big talk and the headlines are great. The Bill is very welcome. However, it is the detail, and the attention to the detail, that will have an impact on whether people survive, recover and live or suffer and die.

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