Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion forward. Outside of health, housing and climate change, this is the topic about which I have spoken the most since I was elected in February 2016. I am not sure how many more motions I can participate in.

This is not related to whether I will be re-elected; I just do not know whether I can keep standing up here repeating figures in the face of a failure to act. I acknowledge the progress made in terms of legislation. I acknowledge that we now have a third national strategy that aims for zero tolerance of violence. I acknowledge that there is a permanent agency. I welcome all of that. However, my frustration is not containable when I look back on my own life.

I had the privilege to work in the area of psychology. in the mid-1980s, I looked at the Kilkenny incest case. The judgement in that case stated that the appalling violence involved was not unusual for the area. In 1996 or 1997 the former Minister of State, Eithne Fitzgerald, produced a detailed report. I referred to this when I spoke on another motion. The terms of reference were broad. It was an excellent report that set things out exactly. One of the main things that jumped out was the call to examine rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators of such crimes and to make recommendations for a comprehensive preventative strategy. That was in 1996 and 1997. Let us fast forward to 2001, when we got the sexual abuse and violence in Ireland, SAVI, report. It gave mind-boggling figures in respect of the prevalence of sexual violence and all types of violence, predominantly against women.

During my time in the Dáil, we begged and appealed for the SAVI report to be updated. It took almost 20 years but we finally got the Central Statistics Office, CSO, to do a report. Now, here we are again, with motion after motion. What we should really be doing is having a debate, led by the Government, on how well it is implementing the strategy. To be in the 21st century and still be looking at the prevalence of sexual and other violence against women and some men and children, with not enough refuges and none at all in nine counties, is simply appalling. Among the consequences is that participation in society is not possible for the women who are subjected to that level of violence or the children who have to watch it.

We are here today paying tribute, and rightly so, to Natasha O'Brien and Bláthnaid Raleigh, who waived her anonymity, and the Women of Honour. I agree with much of what has been said regarding the recent suspended sentence. What struck me about it is that it prodded the review and the appointment of Peter Ward SC. Nothing proactive was happening on the Defence Forces side and that is a huge difficulty. We have Garda protective units set up, ostensibly since 2015. I welcome that. What is the review of those units? What is the feedback to the Minister? Are they operating? Do they have enough resources? We have a domestic violence group in Oughterard and Moycullen in Galway that is struggling for funding.

Last year, 40,048 disclosures of abuse were made to Women's Aid. Thanks be to God we have Women's Aid, which has pushed all of us to repeatedly highlight this topic. At what stage do we say, "Zero tolerance means zero tolerance"? To do that, we need to deal with the perpetrators. An excellent programme was put in place in Galway following the death of Manuela Riedo in 2007. In conjunction with the Galway Rape Crisis Centre, volunteers went into schools and spoke to transition year students. It was wonderfully successful but that pilot project was never resourced and never repeated.

I talked to young people about violence. The thing that jumped out from listening to them was the embarrassment and shame that is embedded in women. The shame should be on the perpetrator and the system, which is failing. The low level of reporting is due to women not having faith in the system. Ostensibly and theoretically we have improved the systems but there is still shame embedded, no place to go and no trust. That is demonstrated over and over again.

We are paying tribute to the women who have waived anonymity and have come forward but 50 years have gone by since Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hearwas published in 1974. I ask Members to search out this book and read it. It was a seminal book at the time and highlighted how things were done or not done, and women screaming in silence. We are no longer doing it in silence but our role here today is to ensure that the third national strategy is actually implemented in time and that refuges are built to be multifunctional because we should reach the stage where we no longer need them. They should be built with a multifunctional and future-use approach. This is what we should be working towards. We should train gardaí and the Judiciary and, obviously, have consistent sentences. The need for consistent sentencing was identified by the task force in 1996.

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