Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senators for raising this matter and for giving me an opportunity to update the House on progress on this important issue. Even before I assumed responsibility for this area, I was struck by the complexity of the problem of domestic violence and of the need for a multifaceted approach to tackling it. Domestic violence is a serious problem, one which we may not have properly acknowledged or faced up to as a society in the past. This has changed significantly in recent years and we now have a much greater awareness of its extent and gravity. I hope this will give us the basis for dealing with it in a serious fashion.

I do not propose to lecture Senators this morning on the scale of the problem or its seriousness. We now know that domestic violence can appear in many forms and is rarely an isolated or sporadic event.