Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am going back again on the Women’s Aid report. It has already been raised by two Deputies. We could not fail to raise it given the damning figures: an 18% increase in disclosures from last year, making it the highest on record. Women’s Aid is now 50 years on the ground. I would have hoped that it would be redundant by this point and we would not need it anymore and instead it has got worse.

What I want to focus in on here is this. In 1996 and 1997, there was a task force and following on from that, we had many strategies and Green Papers. But since that task force published its repot in 1997, 265 women have been murdered by people close to them. That task force identified a number of recommendations. One that jumped out at me was on prevention and help or education for the perpetrator. That has never been dealt with in any of the papers which have followed. Will the Taoiseach respond to that?

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