Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Public consultation opened recently on the third national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It is an important public consultation. Next week is International Women's Day. Today, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality began its work with public hearings to advance the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly.

Today I want to take the opportunity to remember the most extreme end of inequality for women, that is their deaths at the hands of men, femicide that persists in our society and that we felt so keenly in January with the loss of Ashling Murphy. At that stage, on 19 January, I began to put on the record of the Dáil the names of the women who had lost their lives over the past 27 years. Today I will read into the record the names of the 17 women who lost their lives in the month of February going back over the 27 years and the 15 women who lost their lives in the month of March going back over the 27 years.

In the month of February, those women were Fiona Sinnott, Catherine Hegarty, Rachel Sandeman, Nancy Nolan, Mary Whelan, Cliona Magner, Natasha Gray, Lindita Kukaj, Siobhan Kearney, Melanie McCarthy McNamara, Sarah Regan, Olivia Dunlea O'Brien, Deirdre Keenan, Sonia Blount, Joanne Ball, Mary O'Keeffe, Sharon Bennett. I also want to mention Marie Greene and Ciara Breen who went missing on the same day 14 years apart and who have never been found.

In the month of March over the last 27 years 15 women who lost their lives in this way. They also deserve to have their names recognised in the Dáil as part of our work to try to end this practice of violence against women. They were Mary Molumby, Sandra Tobin, Mary Callinan, Sylvia Shiels, Layla Brennan, Liu Qing, Joan Power, Rosie Collinson, Celia Bailey, Katarzyna Barowiak, Noreen Kelly Eadon, Deirdre McCarthy, Mary Dargan, Nicola Collins, Cathy Ward.

All of these women were voiceless in the violence that occurred against them. They were voiceless in their deaths. They were voiceless in the manner of the reporting of their deaths and how their stories were handled by media afterwards. They were voiceless in the legacy that was left behind them in what had happened to their families. All of this happened without any of their consent and all of it happened to them. I want to continue to take the opportunity to give them the dignity of their names read into the Official Report even if we can do nothing to give them their voices back.

The work of the third strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is so important. It is so welcome that it is now at the stage of being open to public consultation. I have seen criticism that this consultation delays the strategy but it is so important. If we cannot have the input of society into this strategy prior to its finalisation, it is not going to be as effective as it has the opportunity to be. We saw across Ireland the hundreds of thousands of people who expressed a view on violence against women, who came out and stood in solidarity with the family of Ashling Murphy.

We need to continue that work and not forget it. At the time, it was a big issue here in the Dáil and a big event on media that was given a lot of coverage. As we said then, it is about not letting that focus go, not dropping the issue and continuing to raise and follow it up consistently to ensure Ashling's death is not another death of a woman that is on the cover pages for a week only for interest to fall away afterwards. Will the Minister of State, on behalf of the Government, provide an update on this matter?

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I know it is something that is close to her heart and on which she has been advocating for a significant period. It is quite poignant to hear the names of the women who died in February and March over the past 27 years. It is good that their names have been put on the Dáil record, which is some sort of acknowledgement. As the Deputy correctly said, they have been made voiceless in myriad different ways. I agree with her that following Ashling Murphy's death in particular, we must keep the momentum going and keep raising this matter in the House. I very much welcome that the subject has been raised as a Topical Issue matter.

The Minister for Justice would like to assure the Deputy that she is committed to tackling domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in all its forms and to ensure people, particularly women and vulnerable persons, feel and are safe in our communities. As the Deputy will know, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, along with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integrity and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, commissioned an independent audit of how responsibility for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is segmented across Government. Separately, Tusla has conducted a review of accommodation services for victims of such violence. Both of these audits were carried out with a view to determining what efficiencies and improvements need to be introduced in how we manage domestic, sexual and gender-based violence responses and services. On foot of the audits and following extensive consultation with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integrity and Youth, it has been agreed that the Department of Justice will now have responsibility for service provision in the area of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence while also continuing to lead on policy in this area.

Work is under way on how this will be structured and I understand further details will be announced in the coming weeks. As part of this, the establishment of a new statutory agency to address domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is under consideration. In tandem, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has been working on the new national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, in partnership with those who work on the front lines. Their voices will be critical to its success and will help to ensure the new strategy is targeted, comprehensive, effective and, most importantly, victim-centred. It will be the most ambitious plan to date in this area and will be structured around the four pillars or goals of the Istanbul Convention, namely, prevention, prosecution, protection and co-ordinated policies. It will set an overall goal of zero tolerance in our society for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

The Deputy may have seen, the week before last, that the Minister briefed those working in the sector on the progress of the strategy and shared the draft document with them. She also launched a wider public consultation on the new strategy on 17 February. That public consultation is in the form of an online survey that asks people's views on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and what they would like to see in the new strategy. For example, it asks what people think the emphasis of the strategy should be, how we can improve supports for victims, how we can better educate our young people and how we can change attitudes across society. It also asks, among many other questions, whether our laws are strong enough to provide justice for victims. The consultation is available through the Department of Justice website and there already have been more than a thousand submissions. I am sure the Deputy will join me in encouraging everyone to engage and make their views known on this important topic before the consultation ends next Thursday. It is a short enough consultation and we encourage everybody, male or female, to give us their views.

The finalised strategy is expected to be brought to Government this spring. When published, it will be accompanied by a detailed action plan setting out how specific actions under these aims will be achieved, who is responsible for them and the timeframe for delivery.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for her response and the update she gave. I note that some of the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on gender equality are already being met by the steps being taken towards the delivery of a strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. That is very important.

What lies behind my reading out of the women's names is an effort to identify the circumstances of each of them, who they were, where they were and what happened to them on the day they died. We have been putting that information on Instagram to tell their stories and try to keep the momentum going on this issue. For my staff and the people who work around me, it is a deeply distressing issue to be dealing with every day. We do not regret beginning this work but it is important to acknowledge that it takes an emotion toll even on us, as far removed as we are. We are trying to keep telling the stories of the women and families. I named 32 women, each of whom had a family who are now without her and have been for up to 27 years.

At the end of January, a walk took place with the family of Urantsetseg Tserendorj from where she worked in the International Financial Services Centre to her home in Dublin 1, just off Talbot Street. When I went on that walk on a rainy January night, what was so striking was just how short it is. It is a short and ordinary route and the attack took place in the late evening. I still cannot get over how short and ordinary a route it is. To lose one's life in such a normal course of events is absolutely appalling. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this issue, which I will continue to do throughout the year in an effort to maintain the momentum of remembering these women, recognising that the Minister for Justice and her Department are doing the work from a policy perspective. Much of this is about changing attitudes and we cannot do that if we allow this issue to slip off the front pages and into the shadows until something else happens.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Again, I commend the Deputy on her work in this area. I have seen her output on social media, including Instagram, and how effective it can be. She is right about the effect on people, even if we are just reading about it. Even the fact that so many women have lost their lives takes an emotional toll. The Deputy's work is good because it keeps their memory alive and gives credence to the momentum we are trying to maintain. Regarding the walk she mentioned, fear of harassment and violence should never be normalised. For those of us who have spoken about being victims in whatever way that transpired, it takes an emotional toll as well. Those stories are really important because this can happen to anybody, whether on a long or short walk, in the daytime or at night. The sort of gratuitous violence that can occur in Irish society is really regrettable and should not happen.

One of the ways to raise awareness and change attitudes, as the Deputy spoke about, is for us, as women, to talk about the issue here in the Dáil Chamber and also to get men involved in talking about it. The work done by the Government is obviously also important. The Ministers, Deputies McEntee and O'Gorman, are at pains to tell us about the work they are doing and that work is significant. They already have substantially increased the budget for 2022 for supports for dealing with domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and measures to confront and deal with the types of issues that are happening at a societal level. There is also significant investment being made by An Garda Síochána more generally and through other mechanisms as well. The consultation on the strategy concludes next Thursday and people need to make their views known. This is a real opportunity to get it right and transform society in order that women who want to go about their normal daily business can fail safe in the same way that men do. Obviously, men also can suffer from violence, but it is predominantly women who experience this particular type of violence. That is what this strategy endeavours to achieve and we hope it will be a success in ensuring we have a shared goal of a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.