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

As most other speakers said, most survivors of gender-based violence are women and girls, but men also experience similar types of violence. It is important that we read out and talk about the definition of that, and the Oireachtas Library and Research Service Digest is very good, as others said. It involves things like sexual, physical, mental and economic harm inflicted in public or private, including threats of violence, coercion and manipulation. It is important that we would say that because people who experience it and people who perpetrate it often need to hear that. I certainly have had experiences where I have had people in my constituency office who often come in for something entirely different and I end up finding myself asking, "Are you safe at home?", or I may well have to say to them, "You know, that is domestic violence." It is important that people hear those definitions.

The last national survey on domestic violence against women and men was conducted in 2005, as Deputy Pringle said. It is a very long time ago. I agree with Deputy Connolly, when she talks about it being violence. The one place one should feel safe is in one's home but for many people, that is not the case.

According to the 2022 Central Statistics Office, CSO, survey on sexual violence and men, 40% of adults experienced sexual violence at some point in their lifetime. Obviously, the prevalence was higher among women than men - 52% as opposed to 28%.

I found that an astonishing figure and really depressing. What do we do about that? Passing legislation is one thing but it requires so much more and I think we all appreciate that.

Service providers have raised concerns about an increase in the number of victims of gender-based violence particularly in the years since the onset of Covid, their ability to meet demand and the resource constraints. Look at the Istanbul Convention and its requirements. This country chose not to base bed spaces in refuges on the number of adults in the population but on the number of women so it is 1 to 10,000. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, confirmed to the Dáil that the reason Ireland chose to provide the lesser number of refuge spaces was because community-based organisations and outreach supports are in place alongside refuges. The fact that service providers are raising those concerns highlights just how stretched they are. We are codding ourselves if we think that makes up the difference of that is needed. We are letting people down who are at very serious risk. Often, when someone feels unsafe at home they are looking for a way to get out, and not a temporary way but a permanent way out. That is because if they go, they know they cannot come back and if they come back it will be worse. Housing is a critical issue in this regard. Some refuges work very closely with local authorities in arguing for women and helping to fill up forms for the housing side but the housing crisis is a very significant part of this issue because there are very limited ways out.

The impacts on victims, survivors and children have a very negative consequence on those individuals but also society as a whole. There is an increased burden on the health system through injuries but there are also other longer term negative health outcomes, particularly for children. There is considerable very good academic research on this which the Minister of State will be more than aware of because it falls in some of the legislation we have discussed. There are adverse childhood experiences, a multiplicity of them, and that trauma can produce offending at a very early age when it should be caught at an early age. Domestic violence and homelessness all feed into that. They have profound impacts and particularly on children. Underachievement in work and education, decreased productivity in work and things such as homelessness are all impacts.

It has already been noted that the EU has costed lost economic output of gender-based violence at around €366 million in a 2019 report. I have already mentioned other impacts including health, costs in criminal justice, social welfare costs, personal costs, specialist services and physical and emotional impacts. Violence against women accounts for around 79% of those costs across the EU. It is astronomical.

The Istanbul Convention seeks to deal with things under four pillars, of which prevention is one. There was very good public service broadcasting with the series “Dr. Cassidy's Casebook”. It sketched out some of the things that need to be done around prevention and protection. I might return to that later.

Co-ordinated policies are really important. I am looking at the Bills Digest and the prelegislative scrutiny. There are matters that are part of the broader justice sector such as legal aid or the availability in courts so that people do not have to wait a very long time. Any regulatory impact assessment on this kind of legislation should sketch out the additional needs in those services rather than saying they are not in its scope. I would like to see a different way of approaching that. Any additional legislation will see new needs arising from it and they have to be provided for. Very often we produce legislation, we say all the things that are needed and then it stretches the existing services which are already inadequate. It is important we pay attention to that.

In 2020, 4,381 inquiries about accessing refuges did not result in access. In almost two thirds of these cases it was because of the lack of available or suitable space. In some cases there might be a space for the woman but not the children. In 2020 An Garda Síochána reported 43,000 reports of domestic violence-related incidents, an increase of 16% on the 2019 figures. We also know about the scandal of the unresponded calls in this area so the numbers may be considerably higher than that. So many cases are not reported or picked up on either. People are sometimes very embarrassed in case their neighbours, for example, know they are dealing with this awful experience. The Mercy Law Resource Centre offers free legal advice around social housing and social welfare law. I have found it to be really helpful to people who have been referred to it. It published a report quite recently. There is often a multiplicity of things at play. Often housing, as much as anything else, is the solution that helps people to get out and stay out.

Dr. Hayley Mulligan, the violence against women officer for the National Women’s Council of Ireland, NWCI, with specific focus on third level education, said the Government is not acting in the spirit of the convention and “failing in their duty of care to these women and children”. Dr. Mulligan, whose work focuses on the proper implementation of the Istanbul Convention, said that the requirements are the minimum standard for human rights.

We have chosen a minimum standard that is below other European countries and we are arguing that we have other services to deal with that. I completely agree that the outreach services for a domestic violence shelter are really important. They can build up confidence and give advice on protection and what is available. Those have to be properly resourced. I remember when the shelter was opened in Kildare, Teach Tearmainn. It is quite a distance from where I live and parts of my constituency. It took several years for it to fully open because while the capital was there to build it funding for the fit-out and resources for half of it took a couple of years so it was just sitting there, where there was a need. That kind of thing should not happen.

Dr. Hayley Mulligan said:

Human rights law is so different, it’s not like criminal law. It relies on the good spirit and will of the nation-state to actually implement it fully.

She said that by not doing this, the Irish Government was “not acting in the spirit of the convention.”

We should reflect on her words. Since 1996, 261 women have died violently in the Republic of Ireland according to Women's Aid. Some 63% were killed in their own homes; 55% were killed by an ex-partner and nine out of ten women knew their killer. We are all aware of it. It comes on the news way too often and we say, "not another one." It is not good enough that we say this; what are we going to do about it? As I said, Dr. Marie Cassidy's series, "Dr. Cassidy's Casebook", was very interesting in drilling down into the kinds of things involved. Very often it is a power struggle and we know that. How do we deal with those issues in a way that is constructive? In the three episodes that were aired recently, it was revealed that women were being killed by men that they knew. Something like 13% of female murder victims were killed by strangers but the vast majority were killed by people they knew. There was one person who featured on that programme, Anne Dunlea, whose sister was murdered. She said that if you have any doubt about your own partner, a loved one or a loved one's partner, speak out and look for help. Do not take any chances. That is what that family did and she talked about that being a terrible regret. However, if someone speaks out, the services have to be there. There has to be a way of intervening where there is a serious risk. We hear about services being stretched and we can see that the incidence escalated post Covid. We have to pay real heed where services are seeing first-hand that they are not coping. If people speak out, not only do they have to be heard but there has to be some action. That is part of how we will keep people safe who are at risk.

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