Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to engage in constructive debate on this Bill, which we all welcomed on Second Stage, and I am sure the Minister will be amenable to looking at many of the proposed amendments. A number of us have worked on amendments with different NGOs and I welcome those in the Gallery, particularly the representatives from SAFE Ireland. I thank the National Women's Council, Women's Aid and Barnardos, all of which have fed into the background work for the potentially constructive reforms of this Bill.

Amendments Nos. 1, 52 and 53 broadly relate to defining an offence of domestic violence, in particular to include controlling or coercive behaviour in such an offence. Senators Norris and Kelleher spoke very eloquently on both amendments and I support both. Indeed, the Labour Party, along with others, put forward amendment No. 52. The CEDAW committee recommended that we introduce a specific definition of domestic violence and the justice committee of the last Government, of which Senator Conway and I were members, recommended a specific offence of domestic violence. Very moving testimonies were given at the committee hearings by survivors of domestic violence and they advocated a specific definition of domestic violence. This would have a practical import but also an impact that is cultural and educational and will change attitudes. It will challenge myths about domestic violence as well as the dismissive attitude towards domestic violence that one still encounters at different levels of society. The tendency to dismissiveness has not been helped by the phrase itself, which has been widely criticised academically. By calling it "domestic violence" it somehow trivialises or de-emphasises the reality of the harm involved. For all of these reasons it is vital that we have a definition and the definition in amendment No. 1 is very helpful, though we would be open to debating how it could be improved upon.

Amendment No. 52 seeks to insert a specific offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship and I am grateful to SAFE Ireland for the very considered submission it made on the need for such an amendment to the legislation. Others have spoken about the recently introduced offence in English legislation, in the Serious Crime Act 2015 where the offence of coercive or controlling behaviour, recognised widely as a prevalent and very significant part of domestic violence, came into force 18 months ago. A study by Jane Monckton-Smith of the University of Gloucestershire stated that control was seen in 92% of domestic killings. This is the extreme end of domestic violence and it is often presaged by a culture of control within the relationship.

There was some doubt about how effective the UK legislation would be and whether it would be possible to police and enforce a law against coercive and controlling behaviour but we can be heartened by the prosecution figures from Britain which show that, of 155 defendants prosecuted for coercive control in 2016, 59 were found guilty and 28 sent to prison.There have been substantive prison sentences handed down in some of these cases, which have been widely reported on, the most well known, probably, being that of the murder of Natalie Hemming, which was the subject of a Channel 4 film. While that was a homicide, it was a case that involved a high level of coercive and controlling behaviour, which, as we know from various studies, is very much a feature of many abusive, violent relationships. It is important that we would seek to introduce by way of this legislation a similar offence in Ireland to deal similarly with this type of controlling or coercive behaviour that falls short of the type of physical assaults currently the subject of most prosecutions under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. It is also important that in introducing a definition of domestic violence we include within it a specific reference to controlling and coercive behaviour.

For all of those reasons, the reasons put forward by the NGOs that have worked on the front line in terms of providing help and support for survivors for many years and on the basis of the arguments already put forward by colleagues and likely to be put forward by other colleagues, I ask the Minister to consider these amendments in the round and to come back to us on Report Stage with provisions that might take account of our concerns and address the need for definitions, particularly of domestic violence, as well as of coercive and controlling behaviour.