Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)

It appears that every single day we wake up to another horrifying headline. Every single week, women in this country read the worst imaginable stories, imagining that it could happen to them. This week, we have once again heard the name Jennifer Poole. Jennifer was 24 when she was brutally stabbed to death in her home in Finglas. She was killed by a man with a long history of violence against women, who had already been jailed for assaulting a previous partner. Jennifer was of course neither a rare nor isolated case. Her story is part of a constant, sickening drumbeat of violence happening in homes, communities and families every single week. The perpetrators are often not strangers. They are not monsters hiding in the shadows, as we allow ourselves to believe. They are often our colleagues, neighbours and friends. We saw it again just last week. A former garda, who swore to protect, used his uniform, knowledge and power to impersonate a colleague online so that men could arrive at a woman's home to assault her. In the United States, former Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney now faces a staggering 79 charges of sexual abuse, decades after survivors first told their stories and were not believed.

The truth is that these men are not hiding. They are operating in plain sight because the systems around them allow it. When survivors speak up and flee violence, when they seek protection, they face a family law system that re-traumatises them. They face judges who are not equipped to spot vital signs of abuse. They face court orders that force them and their children back into contact with their abuser. They face a legal system that is not only indifferent to their safety but complicit in the continued harm.

The research published by Women's Aid this year is damning. Two thirds of women in guardianship and custody cases said the judges had failed to consider the history of domestic abuse. One described the family law system as being even worse than the abuse. A legacy of the system we have built is that it is one where women have to choose between safety and legality, where children are disbelieved, re-traumatised and forced into contact with violent parents. It is simply unacceptable. I said recently that violence against women is not new but social media is supercharging it. Big tech platforms indoctrinate boys with misogyny, funnelled through algorithmic hate. This is where violent men are now being made, in bedrooms, gaming chats and social media apps, and we are doing almost nothing to stop it.

The Government has to act. We must implement the recommendations of Women's Aid and the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women recommendations for Ireland. That means fully resourcing Cuan, not as a token gesture but with stable, long-term investment. It means expanding access to legal aid so women are not priced out of justice. It means passing the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill to tackle discrimination in all its forms, reforming the family courts from the ground up with compulsory domestic abuse training for every legal and child welfare professional, and following through in full as promised with the establishment of the domestic violence disclosure scheme, with a victim-centred approach so that women have the right to find out that they are risk.

We must go further, because the State cannot preach zero tolerance for domestic abuse while gardaí on the front line are undertrained and undersupported. It is no longer acceptable for domestic abuse training to be confined to specialist units. Every single member of An Garda Síochána, regardless of their rank and role, must receive ongoing compulsory continuing professional development in recognising and responding to domestic and gender-based violence. Survivors deserve to be believed and gardaí deserve the tools to understand what that actually means. It means that we have heard the phrase "never again" too many times in this Chamber. It has to mean something and it has to start now, because for every week that passes without action, more women are put in danger, more children are traumatised and more families are left asking why they were not protected.

See this speech in context