Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Senator Norris that this group of amendments can be considered together. They make the case for having statutory guidelines and further set out in detail what those guidelines should be. The amendments will provide judges with a clear checklist they will have to consider when making an order under the Bill. This group of amendments seeks to fix a very real problem, that is, the lack of consistency. One can appear before one judge who will have one set of interpretations and one can appear before another with a very different outcome. Organisations such as SAFE Ireland that work at the coalface report time and time again that cases with very similar facts have very different results. We should not allow this situation to continue and the Bill is an opportunity to put it right. We must give judges legal terms and all involved clarity as to the factors that would be considered when an order is being made under this Act and confidence to act.

The amendments I tabled were advised by SAFE Ireland and they provide an alternative opportunity to define "domestic violence". While Members went through this in the first grouping of amendments, in a way this is another bite of that cherry for once and for all including psychological abuse and coercive control in the definition, going beyond physical abuse as a form of domestic violence, as Senator Norris said.

It is probably good we have some time because we have the expert, or one of the leading experts in the world, in this field coming to Dublin next week. I refer to Dr. Evan Stark, who will be in Croke Park on Tuesday. For the information of those who cannot make it to Croke Park, he will also come here. I am sponsoring his visit with SAFE Ireland. It would be great to see the Minister of State, his officials, all present here and all others who might be looking at this work in the Dáil at a later stage. As the Minister of State said, when one listens to experts, when one delves into the depths of what such psychological abuse consists of day in, day out and year in, year out for victims and when one sees it is often the thin end of a very violent wedge, one understands these are not separate but are part of the same pattern. When someone puts a person down, the latter might say, "Ah, well, I can get over it," but the former person is taking a liberty with the other person. He or she is saying, "You are not equal to me and you are not that important." We therefore need steps that go further in respect of the limiting of a person's freedom and views as to how people behave and how they go about their business. Last year, when a person tragically took the lives of his spouse and children, everyone was at pains to say he was lovely and an upstanding member of his community. This may very well have been the case, but it is possible that he was not the same nice person behind the doors of his own house because such acts do not happen ordinarily. There are mental health issues at stake but that still does not give a person the right to put a person down, be abusive or commit such acts.

SAFE Ireland has put considerable work into these amendments and has advised that the Labour Party's amendment is probably the best worded. I think we would all be open to looking at that amendment as the one we would-----