Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome back to the Chamber for this debate on another important issue. I thank her for accepting the anti-stalking Bill that was brought through the House in the previous session.

This is no country for women, and that is shameful. I find it hard to have these contradictions in my head and heart. I love this country. I am so proud to be Irish, and to be living in a modern European democracy. I am happy to be bringing my children up in this country. On the other hand, however, I have an overwhelming sense of being continuously let down and made angry by the state of things. We have let down our daughters, our friends, our sisters, our mothers.

The Constitution puts us at home. Our country and society put unmarried, pregnant women into institutions. Our church isolated women, persecuted them, shamed them and even said we were unclean after having children. Our schools still do not educate or empower us to do what is right or wrong when it comes to sex and consent. Our healthcare system does not adequately listen to the needs of women. The blame for much of what happens to women is blamed on us. We are just told that is our lot. Our justice system is broken. We do not look after victims. The Minister spoke very passionately earlier about listening to victims and looking after them. I hope she will do that when it comes to reforming the way sexual assaults are dealt with in the legal system. Gardaí need training. They need to be there for girls and women to protect them and their dignity, not to shame them and make them feel like something is their fault. As a people, we must grow up.

I again pass on my deepest condolences to the family of Ashling Murphy on her death, which has rightly given rise to anger. I hope that people and entitles - men, the State, Departments - are listening to that anger. Let us remember all the women in Ireland and across the world who have been murdered. We stand for them. We also stand for the woman who is afraid for her life right now, who is afraid to walk down a street, who is afraid to go home tonight because the man in her life is going to blow and hurt her even more than usual. We cannot let down another woman like the young woman who wrote to me today. These are her words:

As a young woman, gender violence is a very important aspect of my life. When I was 20, I was sexually assaulted and raped. The director of public prosecutions decided there was not enough evidence to press charges on the persecutor as it would be 'my word against his'. They also believed that because I had agreed to go on a date with this person, I wouldn’t be looked upon favourably as a 'victim'. No support is given when a women goes through this either and if there is, there is a lack of it. You have to use your own finances to seek cbt or therapy. This creates shame around victims of abuse too.

That is a recent case. The woman is still young. This is both embarrassing and a really sad indictment of the current system we operate. We will not change until we act on the Minister's lovely sound bite about zero tolerance. We must act on that and put the laws in place. If the laws are not bringing convictions, then they are not working. If the system does not make bringing complaints accessible and make it a safe place to report crime, then it is not working and needs to change. It is a small thing for us to ask to feel safe and to be safe. It is also a small thing to ask for perpetrators of violence to be punished for it. One would think it is a small ask, but it is the biggest ask of our time and of the Government.

I do not want young girls accepting the sexual assaults that I accepted as a young woman. I refer to being sexually assaulted and having to walk off laughing because if you did not laugh, you were no craic and you were abused even more. On one hand, the Government is talking this up and saying we will have zero tolerance, yet when we were faced with it head-on this week with the Women of Honour, who are women of honour, we are let down by the system and told that a system is being put in place. Again, it is a case of the victims being ignored and going with the system. It seems to always be the system and this must change.

I want safe streets. I want my sons to be reared in a country that does not accept this ignorance and sexual violence as a day-to-day norm. I do not want my nieces and the daughters of friends growing up, looking behind them. I curse the country that makes me look behind me constantly when I go out alone. I curse the people who have done this to me and all the women in this room and to all the young girls who we have to face head-on now. It is up to us to change.