Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the matter of the EU study on domestic violence which is incredibly difficult to read. It is shocking. It is more shocking when on last night's 9 o'clock news it merited a line in the middle of several other news items, including an argument about whether Garth Brooks should play five concerts at Croke Park. This is when, in the course of that study, 62 million women reported having been raped, burned, beaten, bullied or abused or have been subjected to violence in some form. The figures are one in three women in Europe, one in four women in Ireland and yet it merits about one minute on the main evening news and today's newspapers have not highlighted the report because it is no longer regarded as an item of news. We no longer care because either the figures are too shocking or we have heard them too many times.

We do not seem to know what to do about this. I do not even want to think what the response would be if it were 62 million men who were the subject of such abuse. We have become inured. There is probably no point in asking a question nor any point in asking for a debate because we do not seem to be making any progress. The figures seem to be going up. We may hang our heads in shame - as might Senator Keane - about Paddy Power's betting antics but surely we should have our heads completely hung in shame over these figures. We do not seem to be making any progress. Perhaps there is a point at which we just give up, go home and say we do not care about the women of our own country and across the European Union who are being treated in this manner.