Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. First, I congratulate my colleague, Senator Chambers, on the work she has done on this Bill. I am incredibly in awe and humbled by the two women in particular, Una Ring and Eve McDowell, who set up Stalking Ireland. They have been victims and because of their experiences they started this process to change things. I also thank Senator Keogan for sharing her story. As Senator O'Reilly said, we are human here and we all come with our lived experiences so I thank her for sharing hers. I am sorry she had to go through that, and that the crime committed against her did not result in a conviction because stalking is not an offence. This is the reason we are here this evening. Stalking should be an offence and the pressure is on now. There is cross-party support in the House.I hope the Department will change its mind and attitude towards this and work with us all here on the Fianna Fáil benches to bring this Bill through all Stages.

I must commend Una and Eve who, against all odds, have come out of this stronger. We speak about survivors and victims a lot in this House and it is always about their strength, about how they have overcome and come out the other side and actually end up turning into those advocates that the State has failed to be. They are advocating for people. They are there with counselling supports and organising for support and help for other victims. The State fails to do it. Now is our opportunity as legislators to make sure that the State grows up and actually starts to support victims and not put the onus onto victims to support other victims. I have seen this time and again. I do not know how many times we have discussed this in the House.

The Department has said that the law of harassment is sufficient but we have seen and heard evidence, there is a consensus from the Law Reform Commission and from survivors, and there is evidence from the UK, that stalking needs to be a stand-alone offence. By legislating to identify stalking it empowers our police force to identify stalking and it empowers victims to know that they are actually being stalked, that it is not a normal behaviour, that it is unwanted behaviour and that An Garda Síochána will listen to them.

Stalking generally is a gendered crime, while there is always the exception where men are stalked or harassed and attacked. Going by the Newstalk survey this week about our unsafe streets, at an early age women and girls are conditioned to act differently, to be careful, to be careful where they go, be careful about who they talk to, what they wear and what they say, how they do it and how they dress. It is always on the woman and the victim to change and adapt and not to encourage another illegal behaviour. The State and the church have perpetuated this for 100 years.

We owe it to women not to treat them as passengers in this society, and to stand up and have us in that front seat and to listen to women because women know what has happened to women over the past 100 years. We are the best advocates for ourselves. Listen to us. It comes from the ingrained bias or degradation of women that sex was something a man could take for granted and a woman had to suppress it. Again and again we see this. This all goes to the exact same thing.

Hopefully women have now turned a corner and we are standing up for ourselves. We are taking no more of it. We want our State, our Government and our country to stand up and back us, back our mothers, sisters and friends, wives and partners and everyone among us. It is time.

I thank Senator Chambers for all her hard work. I thank all of the victims who are suffering and those who may not have come forward. Hopefully, when this Bill is brought through all Stages in the Houses, the next person who is stalked can go to An Garda Síochána and say "I am being stalked, protect me" and will be protected. That is the name and the aim of this Bill.