Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like Senator Murnane O'Connor, I want to highlight the Women's Aid report Against the Odds. The report was launched today supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence. The report is quite apt in an atmosphere worldwide where the examination of the treatment of women is rising on the agenda. The report certainly shows stark, disappointing and frightening statistics for our country. Some 28% of women disclose they have been abused by an ex-boyfriend, partner or ex-husband. The report deals with the whole game of snakes and ladders in trying to get out of those relationships and the physical and psychological terror that is so damaging to women and children in our society.

Like Senator Murnane O'Connor, I share the sense of knowing when one knocks on doors, or knowing who one comes across, one has an idea of what might be going on behind that door, but one feels inept and numb as to how to respond. I commend the advertisements nationally on radio and on billboards that ask people to try and do something if they believe that some woman or child is being harmed. I would like the Minister to come to the House and to ask how it would be feasible, or how to implement Women's Aid's priority rule that there is no contact until contact is safe. That is what it believes will make the lives of women and children safer, and I think the Minister would be able to guide us as to how we can go about implementing it.