Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I want to mark the sad passing of Jacqui Browne, who died yesterday. I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Jacqui as an activist on Thalidomide over many years and was very sad to hear the news. May she rest in peace.

With its report today, Women’s Aid has highlighted the reality that we have an epidemic of violence against women in Ireland. We, of course, acknowledge that progress has been made in recent years. Ireland does now have the agency Cuan and a suite of laws designed to institute zero tolerance for gender-based and domestic violence, and the Minister referred earlier to other changes he is bringing forward on counselling notes. While that is welcome, all of these laws are ineffective if the first line of defence, the gardaí, are not implementing them adequately. That is the charge made by Women’s Aid today.

In its survey, it found that nearly half of the women who sought help from the Garda in the past year found the response “unhelpful”. That is appalling, and the finding reflects a pattern. In March, the Garda Inspectorate reported huge variations in rates of arrest, including for breaches of domestic violence orders, across Garda divisions. Previous studies, for example, in 2019 and 2020, showed that more than 3,000 999 calls on domestic violence went unanswered or were cancelled. In one year, the Garda Inspectorate said that 11,000 reported domestic violence incidents led to only 287 arrests.

This is not zero tolerance. It reflects what may be a dismissive attitude within the criminal process. As a former criminal lawyer - I am sure the Minister has heard this too - I know that all too often, a troubling refrain would be heard in the process, "Ah, it’s only a domestic." That attitude has to be challenged. We all know the brutal impact that domestic violence has, including women are killed or injured by partners or women are entrapped in their homes, subjected to coercive control or manipulated by former partners through the legal process. That is why we must have zero tolerance because the consequences are so appalling for women and children.

Yesterday, the Minister launched the final implementation plan for the zero-tolerance strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It and the actions within it are welcome. However, we need to hear specifically how the Minister will ensure consistency in the Garda response to reports of domestic and sexual violence. Undoubtedly, some of the increased calls are due to heightened awareness but as Sarah Benson from Women’s Aid says, the record high numbers are still only the tip of the iceberg. We all know there is a dark figure of unreported sexual and domestic violence in Ireland and it needs to be tackled.

Victims and survivors need support. Gardaí in local stations are the first line to whom reports are made and they clearly require more training. Gardaí themselves acknowledge this and the Minister has also acknowledged that the training needs to be improved. With the new Garda Commissioner to be appointed soon, will the Minister ensure that this new officer tackles it as a priority? Does he accept his own role in ensuring that the Garda response to domestic and gender-based violence is adequate? What will he do to address this?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. I never heard anyone say, "Ah, it’s only a domestic." I do not see how anyone could say that when reflecting on the level of violence, homicides and killings of women that, regrettably, have taken place on the island. It is simply an unacceptable aspect of violence in this country that a significant amount of the violence is targeted against women. Of course, what distinguishes violence against women from violence against men, predominantly, is that it is vastly the case in violence against women that they are killed, murdered or assaulted by people with whom they are in a relationship, or were in an intimate relationship, or, indeed, a family member. It is that connection that makes it possible for us, as policymakers, to try to focus on solutions to identify how we can protect women from those who are close to them.

In the circumstances where the Deputy mentioned the issue of An Garda Síochána, the statistics were set out. As I said in reply to Deputy McDonald, the majority had a positive experience of their engagement with An Garda Síochána. Part of the problem, however, is that while the Garda has specialised officers who deal with domestic sexual and gender-based violence, sometimes it is the case that when a woman initially contacts An Garda Síochána, she does not meet a person within the force who has that level of expertise and training. It is the case that everyone in Templemore goes through basic training in respect of domestic violence but that advanced, heightened level of training that certain gardaí have only comes as a result of their focus on that certain area of expertise. When women I have spoken to, who have contacted and engaged with An Garda Síochána, come into contact with gardaí who are expert in the area of domestic violence in particular, they have a very positive narrative. I am sure we all recall situations where we see on the news in the evening a victim coming out of court and expressing their gratitude to the members of An Garda Síochána and how professional they were in dealing with this.

It is an ongoing issue and there is no simple solution in respect of it. However, it is also important, as I have stated repeatedly, that there is huge benefit to recognising it. We should not compartmentalise this as a woman's issue. It is a societal issue. It is more of an issue for men and boys than it is for women because, regrettably, my sex is the sex that perpetrates this violence against women to a large extent. We have to start warning boys and young men about the unacceptability of using violence in a relationship.

Of course, other aspects of influence are imposed upon young boys and men now. Pornography must be having an extraordinary impact on young men because it presents women in a very submissive, malleable manner. We need to warn people at a young age, educationally, that it is unacceptable to use violence in a relationship. Not all the solutions are through the criminal justice system.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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Of course, I entirely agree with the Minister that not all the solutions are through the criminal justice system. Of course, this is an issue for all of society to address. This is an endemic social issue. It is the survivors themselves who have told me about hearing that dismissive attitude. Unfortunately, it is all too prevalent not just in the criminal justice system, but throughout our society. That is why we call for zero tolerance to tackle the attitude that dismisses what is a desperately serious issue and what is an epidemic.

Of course, there is excellent practice within An Garda Síochána but gardaí themselves acknowledge the need for improved training. We all know there is a shortcoming in Garda numbers. The Dublin task force has called for 1,000 extra gardai but there was no mention of that yesterday in the Minister’s implementation plan. It is not just gardaí or policing practice. Clearly, we need more general reform.

A year ago, in response to the courageous advocacy of Natasha O'Brien, we in the Labour Party brought forward a motion with eight specific asks on addressing gender-based violence. A year on, Natasha will be highlighted in a programme on RTÉ tonight calling again for more reform of the criminal justice system to address the needs of survivors. I will send the Minister our motion and I will be looking for action on it.

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I hope that some of the measures she called for are already being acted upon by me, such as the counselling notes, guardianship of infants and the issue in respect of a disclosure system to reveal individuals who have been convicted of domestic abuse previously. I have no difficulty with that. I will speak to the new Commissioner, and I have spoken to the current Commissioner as well, in respect of the issue of domestic and gender-based violence. It is something I am prioritising in my time as Minister. As I said, I commend the excellent work done by my predecessor, Deputy Helen McEntee, and it is something that I am not going to allow to become less significant than it was during her tenure. We need to recognise that it requires a societal response.

"Zero tolerance" is the excellent term we used in the strategy because this must be a type of activity for which we have zero tolerance. It is unacceptable that anyone would think issues in a relationship can be resolved through the use of violence. People cannot do so and, if they do, the criminal justice system will come down on them very strongly.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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I extend the condolences of the Social Democrats on the death of disability activist, Jacqui Browne. Her loss will be greatly felt.

The details in today's Women's Aid report are deeply disturbing but not surprising. We know domestic and gender-based violence is insidious. It thrives in silence, shame and in the shadows but it is everywhere, in every parish, every institution and every workplace. Last year, more than 41,000 women contacted Women's Aid. The scale is staggering but it is only the surface. One in three women will experience physical, psychological or sexual abuse by a partner or ex-partner. That amounts to nearly 900,000 women affected by this type of violence in this country right now.

This did not happen by accident. We have allowed this violence to grow and I am fearful about where it is headed. We are living in a culture where perpetrators of abuse are not only tolerated but celebrated. They include the President of the United States, sports stars with multimillion euro contracts and influencers who poison our young men with misogyny packaged as self-help. The network of anti-women online communities, full of grifters, abusers and con men, is flooding social media with hate. As a State, we are doing almost nothing to stop it.

More than a decade ago, when Irishwoman Jill Meagher was murdered in Australia, her husband Tom wrote about the monster myth. In that work, he explained that abusers are often thought of as monsters - broken and unrecognisable - but they are not. Often, they are our colleagues, neighbours and friends. The monster myth lets us all off the hook. It is the man shouting at a woman in a bar, the hand on her back she did not invite and the so-called jokes about rape being shared in WhatsApp groups. That is how violence is normalised.

The epidemic of men's violence against women continues to be framed as a women's issue across all facets of society. Let us make no mistake about the truth, which is that men's violence against women is a crisis that men must be part of solving. We have created a society where there is such a pervasive sense of male violence against women that we have had to coin the word "femicide" to describe the epidemic. Even the very word allows men to evade accountability for this ongoing crisis. As men, we need to do more than shake our heads. We must call out violence when we see it because to be silent is to be complicit.

Violence against women is nothing new but social media is supercharging it. Big tech platforms are driving it straight into the phones of young men. Their algorithms reward misogyny, disinformation and abuse because they keep people scrolling and keep the companies making money. Last year, a study by DCU showed that violent, sexist content was delivered to male-identified accounts within 23 minutes of their owners logging on, even if the user showed no interest in such content. This is the scale of what we are up against. With the kinds of actors we have at the helm of the biggest social media platforms, we cannot afford to drag our feet.

Every hour the Government delays acting allows violence and hatred towards women to be normalised online and across society. My questions to the Minister are simple. When will the Government finally act to regulate recommender algorithms? When will it switch off the systems that are spreading hate for profit before more harm is done?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I express my condolences and those of the Government to the family of the disability campaigner, Jacqui Browne.

I appreciate that the Deputy, as a man, has identified that this is predominantly a men's issue because violence against women is perpetrated by men. He is right in his identification that the influences on young men at present are considerably different from when he was a young man and certainly from when I was a young man. As I said earlier to Deputy Bacik, we do not see what is really happening online in terms of what young people are exposed to and how the relationship between men and women is being presented. There are some well-known examples of what the Deputy correctly calls misogynists who treat women completely as objects and seek to inform young men how they should treat women in relationships.

The solution, to a large extent, lies with men. I commend the GAA on the huge amount it has done in recognising and trying to combat violence against women. This epidemic, as people have correctly described it, will only be resolved if the vast majority of men recognise the need for them to do work to emphasise its unacceptability. The GAA is working to achieve that, as are other sporting organisations. Those organisations come with a good authority because sport, by definition, is about physical contest and combat. It is about fairness and it is, in many respects, manly. It is an important mechanism by which we can emphasise to young boys and men that using violence against women is never acceptable.

The Deputy asked what can be done about social media companies and the algorithms they use. In the first instance, there is a big responsibility on social media companies to ensure they do not allow their platforms to become platforms of misogyny and violence against women. If they do, their business will suffer. They have a huge societal responsibility to ensure action is taken in this regard.

In terms of the EU Digital Services Act and digital services co-ordination, there is a requirement that we get our act together at a European-wide level. This is not a problem that can simply be resolved through domestic legislation in Ireland. It requires an EU response. At present, as the Deputy knows, there is a divergence between views in the United States and views in Europe as to the extent of regulation required. The Government is very clear that we need regulation to ensure we combat the spread of this activity online. I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that it is extremely difficult to combat and confront such activity. However, it starts with responsibility being exercised by social media providers and, second, ensuring we get our digital services legislation correct at EU level.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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I fully concur that the responsibility lies with men to address this pervasive issue. However, that does not absolve the State of its responsibility, and the State is in neglect of its responsibilities across a variety of fields when it comes to men's violence against women, be that the provision of refuge centres, the collation of data or the regulation of social media platforms. I absolutely agree that technology has changed since I was younger. I can only imagine the terror of parents of young girls in this country at the moment, when we have social media influencers bombarding them with hate-filled messaging that target their body size and seek to direct how they should approach the world.

That is why we require regulation. Europe absolutely has a role in this but the tech companies are based here. If we enforce their own GDPR standards, on which their algorithms rely, that would cut the problem off at source right now. There is no need for the State to absolve itself of responsibility for the insidious violence that is being inflicted upon women and young girls in this country and throughout Europe. We can lead on this by applying GDPR standards to the tech companies that are based here.

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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It is important to emphasise the role of Coimisiún na Meán. In October 2024, it adopted Ireland's first online safety code, which obliges designated platforms to protect people, especially children, from harmful video and associated content.

People spend far too much of their lives looking at social media. We need to tell young people, and adults, that what they see on social media is not representative of the real world. It is a misrepresentative reflection of the world. As politicians and policymakers, we all need to emphasise that.

Great work is being done by Coimisiún na Meán. I take the Deputy's point regarding regulating online providers. He is not suggesting we do so but I emphasise that it is not easy to impose statutory requirements on them in the context of the powers we have. It must be done in an EU-wide context. We need to continuously emphasise that the type of behaviour that is advocated online is not acceptable and that a man or boy should never raise his hand to a woman.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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I highlight a serious contradiction at the heart of the immigration and passport system, which raises serious concerns for national security, consistency and public trust. I will start with the Irish passport system. Every Irish citizen goes through a rigorous process to get a passport. Parents applying for their child's first passport must submit the long-form birth certificate, photographic identification and proof of address, all of which must be signed off on by An Garda Síochána. It takes weeks, sometimes months, for the processing of that standard, which is strict, as it should be, to be completed.

Let us look now at what is happening under another arm of the State. People who enter Ireland with no identification at all - no passport, birth certificate or official documents - are being allowed to apply for asylum and, later, in some cases, Irish citizenship. In certain circumstances, where they cannot provide identification, they are allowed to submit a sworn affidavit instead, that is, a legal document that simply declares who they are.

Once that affidavit is accepted and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade grants asylum, an application for a naturalisation certificate is accepted without question and without issue, following which a passport may be issued with no further checks and balances or questions. This raises a serious issue. One arm of the State is now applying rigorous verification standards while another is accepting unverified personal claims in the form of sworn statements when it has no way to confirm the truth. Even more worrying is that the replies I received to parliamentary questions I put to both the Department of foreign affairs and the Department of justice confirm that we do not track or count the many people who are granted citizenship or passports in this way. The State is simply not counting them.

I will put this number in perspective for the Minister. Some 775,000 passports were issued in the period from January 2024 to August 2024. It is anticipated that the number will be 1 million by the end of this year. Some 56,000 of those applications came from the county of Cork, where my own constituency is located. Of course, the vast majority of these applications are legitimate. Should we take it that all of those applications were subject to scrutiny and full verification?

This is not about compassion; it is about consistency, national security and waking up to the fact that naivety or laxity can be weaponised against us. Does the Minister accept that there is a gap and serious weaknesses in the standards of the passport and naturalisation process? Will he confirm that every single applicant for asylum or protection is being fingerprinted and identified as they come into this country?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I will answer Deputy O'Flynn's last question while it is fresh in my mind. Yes, anyone who comes in claiming international protection is fingerprinted and assessed against the Eurodac system.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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Are all the machines working?

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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That happens to anyone who arrives into a port. The Deputy raised issues with the passport system. We all want to speed up the passport system as much as possible so that people can get their passports quickly. The Deputy then raised the issue of people who seek citizenship through naturalisation. I had the great privilege of being down in Killarney on Monday when a judge was handing out citizenship. I was there to celebrate the citizenship of new Irish citizens. The Deputy would be surprised at the number of people there who have been in Ireland for years. I hope Mr. David Evans, also known as the Edge, does not mind me mentioning him but he has some public prominence and he was one of the people who received Irish citizenship. Like everyone in this House, I had assumed he was an Irish citizen but in fact he came to Ireland from Wales with his parents when he was one year of age. The Deputy should know that there is a very vigorous system in the Department of justice for the purposes of assessing citizenship applications. By way of example, most of the people I met down in Killarney have been in this country for many years.

The Deputy also raised issues regarding people claiming international protection having arrived without documentation and the affidavits they subsequently swear. I will provide some statistics in respect of the excellent work being done by the border management unit within my Department. This unit is doing doorstep operations at Dublin Airport on a much more consistent basis. In 2024, the border management unit carried out 7,325 doorstep operations at Dublin Airport. By the end of May this year, it had already carried out 2,453 such operations. The border management unit is doing a significant amount of work.

If a person comes in claiming international protection, that person is entitled to have his or her application considered and processed. It is the same in every EU country and in the UK. What I am trying to do is to speed up that process, so people are not staying in Ireland for a number of years while waiting for their applications to be finalised and determined. It is much fairer to those people and to the system if they are given prompt decisions. If we get prompt decisions - I am seeking to have decisions made within a period of three months in the first instance and on appeal - we will not have the type of situation the Deputy is concerned about. Where people have been granted international protection, they are perfectly entitled to stay and may subsequently apply for citizenship. If they have not been granted international protection, they will not be entitled to stay. That is the way the system is dealing with the matter. It is a complicated issue but vigilance is at a high level in the Departments of justice and foreign affairs.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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Does the Minister believe it is acceptable that Irish passports and citizenship can be granted by his Government without proper documentation? That is the question here. That is what it is really about. All the Minister has done in his answer is to confirm that people can enter this country without identification, claim asylum and sign a sworn affidavit saying who they are without proving who they are and without us being able to check. We are not even counting these people. I put four questions to both the Minister's Department and the Department of foreign affairs and the responses confirm all of this. We have to keep proper State records. This is about national security. It is about identifying who is coming into our country before we grant them citizenship or an Irish passport. The Minister knows as well as I do how you are put through the wringer when you have to apply for a passport for your child, which is only right. All of us in the House have experience of trying to get passports for people who are rushing to get them.

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I want the Deputy to know that Irish passports and citizenship are not granted easily. I am sure that if the Minister for foreign affairs were here, he would confirm that is true of passports. With regard to citizenship, many colleagues in this House ask me about citizenship applications. They criticise how long they take and ask why the process is so lengthy. The reason is that you have to do very significant vetting and testing before an individual is granted citizenship. That is done vigorously. The criticism I usually face from people in the House is that it takes too long and that the process should be sped up.

With regard to people coming to Ireland claiming international protection, as I have told the Deputy, people who arrive in any EU country without documentation are entitled to claim asylum. However, if they are discovered to have destroyed documentation, that is a criminal offence and people have been prosecuted for that offence under the Immigration Act. Our systems are getting more vigorous.