Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I pay tribute to the brave women who have come forward in recent weeks to speak about the abuse they have received at the hands of violent men. We are now familiar with the story of the incredibly brave Natasha O'Brien. She is a remarkable young woman, someone who steps in when she sees something wrong. She confronted a man yelling homophobic abuse in the street and she was then brutally assaulted by a serving member of the Defence Forces, Cathal Crotty, as his friends stood by and watched. This week, Bláthnaid Raleigh waived her right to anonymity after the man who raped her, John Moran, was sentenced to eight years. She told reporters outside the courthouse that she wanted to put the shame back on him after feeling totally isolated in the aftermath of her horrific assault, going through months of treatment in a sexual assault victims’ unit as her rapist moved freely around his community. A look at the stories coming out of the courts this week paints a horrific picture of the reality of women's safety in Ireland. Two young women were raped in Dublin by a taxi driver, Raymond Shorten. One of the young women described how she thought she was taking the safe option, the option we are told to take. We are told not to walk home alone at night but get a taxi. What is glaring in this case is that he had previous convictions for sexual offences. Why was this man allowed to have a taxi licence? Why is anyone with a record of sexual violence allowed to have a taxi licence, to pick up people alone and get their home address? Does that seem safe to anyone? The NTA, as taxi regulator, needs to wake up and do an immediate review of its drivers to ensure the safety of people who step into those cars. Ireland has a violence against women problem and Ireland has always had a violence against women problem. At every step of our State's history, it has been endemic and it has been structural. We have locked women away, shamed them, abused them and silenced them. Generations of Irish women have had to endure misogyny. Culturally, perpetrators are protected and victims are blamed. Coercion and street harassment are dismissed, not to mind the legacy of mother and baby homes and repeated women's health scandals. Every few years we have an epiphany. We say, "Oh god, that was horrible", "How was that allowed to happen?" and "It can never happen again". It always happens again, because we have not taken the steps as a country to ensure that it never happens again.

Our justice system was not built to protect these victims of crime. In fact, it often seems to compound the trauma. When someone, predominantly a woman, experiences sexual or domestic violence there are barriers at every step of their journey. The first step after experiencing a sexual assault would generally be to present yourself to a medical facility. However, for women in rural areas, outside of hours medical services are barely existent. In my constituency in west Cork, as in most rural areas, there is no sexual assault treatment unit.

The reality of what that step looks like, therefore, is that someone who has just gone through an incredibly traumatic assault is then put into a Garda car, not even able to shower, and driven to Cork city.

Another initial step is often victims' experience with the Garda and reporting the sexual violence, which can be negative. The Rape Crisis Network report of 2022 found only 64% of respondents felt they had been treated in a sensitive manner by the Garda. For survivors, their initial engagement with the Garda is the first step in the criminal justice system and sets the tone for their experience going forward. Victims of sexual assault are well aware the likelihood of receiving justice is astronomically low and that is reflected in the fact only 5% of those who experience sexual violence as an adult even report it to the Garda, rising to 12% of those who experience sexual violence as a child. The number of female rape victims in Ireland is almost three times higher than the EU average, and how many of them actually receive justice?

I and so many others are really glad the DPP has decided to review the shamefully lenient sentencing of Cathal Crotty, but this is not an isolated case. There needs to be wholesale reform of how courts and judges treat sexual and domestic abuse and how they treat victims in that. We need to see reformed sentencing guidelines and know why they have not materialised. We need continuous training for judges and barristers and we need to see an end to some of the most brutal and shameful practices in courts, where victims are shamed and retraumatised at every step. I am thinking of, as we have heard, underwear being passed around the courtroom or counselling notes being used.

More than 250 women have been violently killed since 1996, and in the vast majority of resolved cases, they were killed by a man known to them. In half of the cases, they were killed by a current or former partner. People cannot leave a violent household if there is nowhere to go. We need more refuge spaces. The State is providing only about 29% of the required refuge spaces. The Istanbul Convention standard is one space per 10,000 people. Ireland provides a fraction of that. Cork city and county, with a population of more than 500,000, should have 54 spaces; it has six. Many counties have none. Domestic violence leave has been introduced, providing five days' leave, half of what was recommended. I challenge anyone to pick up their life and children, flee their home, arrange their own accommodation because the local authority will not do it for them, go to the Garda, get a solicitor, go to court and attend all the custody hearings, all within five days. That is not to mention how much harder this can be for disabled women. In a growing number of cases, victims of domestic violence lose custody, with a notable pattern of their partners weaponising the parental alienation concept.

Crucially, we need education. I was struck by the words of Bláthnaid Raleigh this week, when she stated:

I have noticed in the fallout of Natasha O’Brien’s case and my own case is that there is a demographic of men, young men, who don’t want to speak out against their peers. I have so many messages of support from people but 95% of them are from women and the rest are older men. That’s wrong. I also think there is a misconception that the perpetrators in sexual violence cases are older men. They aren’t. They are young guys in our friendship circles.

There is an immediate need for education on consent, sexual violence, coercion and online abuse. There has been an online radicalisation of young men, in particular, in recent years, which we have not got a hold of. If we are to meaningfully to address the prevalence of violence against women in Ireland, we need to address the structural barriers that enable it.

I acknowledge the work the Minister has done on this issue. As far as I know, she is the first Minister for Justice to have made it a focus. We have heard some ridiculous commentary about that in recent times, calling it "woke" and so on, but there is nothing woke about addressing the number of women being killed and violently assaulted. I commend her on her focus on it.

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