Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. I strongly welcome the passage of the Domestic Violence Bill with great haste through this House. Like Senator Kelleher I pay tribute to the immense work so many individuals and organisations have done to improve and strengthen this long awaited and very important Bill. I thank in particular groups such as SAFE Ireland, the National Women's Council of Ireland, the Rape Crisis Centre, Barnardos, Women's Aid and others who have all put a great deal of work into briefing us and seeking to strengthen the Bill.

I thank the Minister of State for accepting my original amendment on the factors or circumstances to which a court should have regard in determining applications. I acknowledge that the amendment was a compendium, as all of us had put forward amendments along similar lines. I am pleased to see the measure has been amended by the Government and is now part of the Bill. That will make a significant difference in practice in ensuring greater consistency in the processes whereby those important orders are granted.

In respect of my amendment No. 5, I am conscious that given the tight timeframe we would not have had a chance to agree it in the Seanad in any case but I know that my Labour Party colleagues will introduce it in the Dáil. That amendment would have had the effect of amending the definition of serious offence in the Bail Act 1997 in order to enable objections to bail to be made and bail to be refused where, for example, a person has a cumulative series of convictions for breaches of barring orders, none of which individually would be serious but which taken together amount to a serious history. It is a point I made on Committee Stage and it is one that was raised with me by practitioners and NGOs. I hope it is something the Minister of State might take into consideration between now and when the Bill reaches Committee and Report Stages in the Dáil. We can press the amendment further in the Dáil through the Labour Party and I am sure we will have support from other colleagues there.

We are all grateful to the Minister of State and his officials for being so engaged with us and for agreeing to accept the crucial amendments on coercive control, the new offence which is truly groundbreaking and historic, the amendment on aggravated factors which went so far towards meeting our concern that there should be a specific offence of domestic violence, and the amendment on specific factors for a court to take into account in deciding whether to make an order. The Bill will make an immense difference to the victims and survivors of domestic violence, to women and children who are suffering so much every day in homes across the country.