Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak again for the Labour Party on the topic of gender-based violence. I am glad we have this opportunity to have statements. I thank all those who engaged earlier on the Labour motion we brought forward on the same topic and on the broader topic of support for victims of violent crime more generally. There was some really substantial engagement. I thank the Minister for engaging in particular on each of the eight asks in our motion. We put forward a series of eight constructive proposals for reform to strengthen our system of supports and protections for victims of violent crime, to ensure greater consistency in sentencing and to address the gaping flaws in the criminal justice system that have been exposed so bravely by Natasha O'Brien. I want to again pay tribute to Natasha, who was with us this morning in the Public Gallery. I thank her for her powerful advocacy on behalf of victims of crime, just as others have also thanked Bláthnaid Raleigh, who has spoken out so eloquently and powerfully in recent days about her own experience. Then we think also of the others like Lavinia Kerwick all those years ago, whose advocacy has also helped to pave the way for reforms. However, clearly not enough reforms have taken place. In addition to the eight specific asks we put forward this morning, there are clearly many other changes that need to be made. While the Minister's speech was constructive and engaged, there were other Government speeches that really did not seem to admit there was still work to be done but simply, in a somewhat self-congratulatory fashion, set out improvements that had been made. It is crucial that we all work together, acknowledge that there are still failings in the system and that we work together to address these. We must also acknowledge how long it takes to make these necessary changes. I am thinking back to 1993 and Lavinia Kerwick's powerful intervention that brought about important changes, such as the right of the DPP to appeal sentences on grounds of undue leniency, which was hugely important. We have seen that exercised again by the DPP in recent days. Another change was the right of the victim to bring forward a victim impact statement. There is still, however, a disconnect with the use and application of the victim impact statement. I am thinking back to campaigns I was involved in to expand the victim impact statement in order that it would apply to families of victims of homicide. That was an anomaly initially and it was one we addressed but again, it took the families of victims and the great advocacy group, AdVIC, to show that this needed to change so that families of victims of homicide would be included in the victim impact statement system. However, we still do not really have enough information on how victim impact statements affect sentencing practice. That is an area the Judicial Council should work on. We very much welcomed the Judicial Council as a reform but again, our motion this morning highlighted delays in the implementation of the work of the Judicial Council. I think the Minister has acknowledged that.

I am glad to hear in the debate this morning some clarity on when we will see some of those guidelines that should be coming forward on sentencing from the Judicial Council. I want to hear about the review of the practice of suspending sentences. That is a particular issue that has given rise to a lot of disquiet among legal practitioners, with judges using different criteria to decide on the suspension of sentences. We need to ensure the training for judges is really robust and that it applies not just to new recruits to the Judiciary but to those who may be long established as well. That is very important. We need to see an interrogation of the use of practices in sentencing that have been so widespread for so long we no longer question them. This is not just the suspension of sentences but another issue that has caused real disquiet among practitioners in recent days, which is the practice of finding facts without proceeding to a conviction. It is a practice with which, as a criminal practitioner, I was very familiar. It can be very important where you have somebody on a first time, non-violent offence before the District Court. It could be a very minor offence and a judge will find the facts and not proceed to a conviction and therefore, there is no conviction recorded. It is a rehabilitative function. However, there is a question where there is a violent crime where somebody has had the benefit of that already and it happens again. There is real disquiet about the way that has been carried out in recent days.

I was also glad that the Minister committed to moving on the multi-annual funding for refuges and for service providers of supports for victims. Of course, we also welcome the establishment of Cuan but we want to see that institution properly and adequately funded and we want to see greater urgency in the roll-out of refuge spaces, in particular in those nine counties currently without them. It is important to see progress on all of these matters. It is important that we work constructively across Opposition and Government on these issues, just as we did on the separate legal representation provision, which came about as a result of a study a number of us did in Trinity College Dublin, funded by the Rape Crisis Centre, back in the late nineties. That led to changes in the law in the Sex Offenders Act and we were really proud to be part of that. It was about expressing the experiences of survivors of rape, looking at how they had found that awful revictimisation process in the criminal courts, and looking at how we could address that and provide supports. That is the way in which we constructively work to achieve real change. Of course, the bigger piece and the bigger issue is the culture. I refer to the culture of gender inequality where we have what is that awful epidemic of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence of which others have spoken. This is a culture in which everyday sexism and sexual harassment is tolerated and in which, as the Minister and the Taoiseach has said, increasingly young boys have access to violence and porn on phones much more readily. It is a culture in which, as parents - and I am a parent of teenagers - all of us as digital tourists are so fearful that children and teenagers who are digital natives have access to a far greater array of disturbing imagery and conditioning than we had. Regarding that experience of everyday sexism, 30 years on from when I was enduring sexual harassment as a young woman working in the service industry on student holidays, a very widespread experience in the late eighties and early nineties, it is very disheartening to see young women still experiencing that level of everyday harassment and sexism. It is really disturbing. We absolutely need to stand firm. It is up to men and boys to stand firm against sexism and misogyny and to stand for equality, in every facet of our society.

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