Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My party and I truly welcome this domestic violence Bill and thank the Minister most sincerely for all the work she has done and bringing the Bill to the Oireachtas. Domestic violence can happen to anybody. It happens to men and women. It can happen to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, community, an issue about which my colleague will talk in a few minutes. It can happen in any social stratum. For want of a better word, I will use the word "victims", but I like to think of people who experience domestic violence as survivors, whether they are surviving it at the moment or have come out the other side.

I hope the Bill can be improved further as it passes through the Houses of the Oireachtas. My Sinn Féin colleagues and I will not be found wanting in helping to make the Bill as good as it can be. I thank safeireland and welcome Sharon, with whom I have worked. I also thank Women's Aid and all those working in women's refuges and rape crisis centres throughout the 32 counties. I have met women from the Shankill Road and Cork who work in the area and have experienced domestic violence. I thank the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Amnesty International and others with whom I have worked for campaigning tirelessly for changes to legislation and the wonderful work they do every day for survivors of domestic violence.

Don Hennessy from Cork has done exceptional work and wholly and completely captured the evil dynamic when perpetrators of domestic violence set to work on their victims. His book, How He Gets into Her Head: The Mind of the Male Intimate Abuser, helps to make sense of the question many ask: why does she not just leave him? We know that, on average, it takes seven years for a woman to leave a situation of domestic violence. Mr. Hennessy helps women experiencing abuse and violence to recognise the power and control games being played to destroy their self-esteem.

Above all, I acknowledge the courage, strength and resilience of the women and children who have experienced domestic violence, those who continue to live with abuse and those who have managed to leave. I want us to remember the 209 plus women who have died violently in Ireland since 1996 and all those who died prematurely because of the violence and abuse inflicted on them. I acknowledge their suffering and that of their families. I acknowledge those adults who were robbed of their childhood and have survived domestic violence.

Domestic violence is one of the most heinous crimes that can be committed. It is a crime that is repeated day after day, night after night for years and sometimes decades. We often express shock and outrage about one-off incidents when violence is inflicted on a victim, rightly so, but why do we turn a blind eye to domestic violence? Why do we have an inherent tolerance for sustained attacks on human beings just because the violence occurs behind closed doors or because it is inflicted by a perpetrator who is known to the victim? What does that say about our society and us, as legislators? Someone said the Bill was timely, but it is 100 years too late. The barriers that prevent many from leaving much sooner than they should should be removed and appropriate supports put in place.I speak about these barriers from an experience of working with women and children and experience in the area of domestic violence over a number of years. The lack of alternative accommodation is one of the biggest barriers. This ranges from the shortage of refuge beds to the lack of transitional housing to spiralling rents. Women and children who flee domestic violence must be exempt from the red tape and bureaucracy that surrounds housing applications. The woman may be the joint owner of the house, but if she is fleeing for her life then she can hardly call it home. To this end, all housing officers should have domestic violence training in order that they truly understand the dangers and dynamics of the situation of the woman who is sitting before them.

Reference was made to the property test. We need to remove the property test for co-habitants when applying for a barring order where the best interests of the children of the family so requires. If there is a strong pragmatic reason this cannot be done, we need the duration of the short-term barring order to be at least six months for the co-habitant applicants who do not satisfy the property test. The maximum duration of a barring order should be extended to five years.

Gardaí must be allowed to apply for out of hours barring orders to an on-call judge. The return date would be the next sitting date in the nearest available court. This would enable those victims of domestic violence to be protected out of hours and would strengthen the power of gardaí who often try to deal with domestic violence without having the legislation they need to do the job they want to do and ensure the safety of victims. I hope this legislation can do that. Gardaí must be empowered to deliver safety and barring orders as a matter of course. The practice of the person who is suffering the abuse having to deliver the order to the perpetrator is absurd. We know that the most dangerous time for a woman is when she is trying to leave. The practice of the perpetrator who may be barred from the house having unsupervised access to the children is terrifying. It is imperative that the risk posed by the perpetrator of domestic violence to the children of the family, and the impact of such abuse on them, is assessed and that immediate interim measures are taken to protect children.

I welcome the fact this Bill recognises violence and abuse inflicted by perpetrators who are living separately from the victim of the domestic violence. Considering all that can be done to abuse a victim through social media and so on, it is past time that this was done. These are just a few of the elements we need to shore up this Bill. On Committee Stage Sinn Féin will have a number of amendments to enhance this Bill. The Minister has our assurance that we will continue to do everything possible to expedite this legislation.

Most importantly, this legislation must be underpinned by additional resources for front-line services. When the budget is being discussed I want the Minister to say to the Minister for Finance in the context of this legislation that she has done all this good work and now we need the resources to be able to make it meaningful. This involves getting additional funding for refuges, helplines and cross-agency and community training. This involves additional funding for refuges, helplines and cross-agency and community training. This training would include mandatory training for judges, about which I will speak at another stage. According to Safe Ireland, 5,000 requests for refuge places were refused last year. This, in itself, is criminal. I thank the Minister for all the work she has done and we look forward to working with her on the Bill over the coming weeks.