Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being present for these statements. I start by expressing my heartfelt sympathy to the family, boyfriend, friends and community of Ashling Murphy. They are living through the nightmare we all fear for our mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters and friends. I also express my deepest sympathy to the family of Urantsetseg Tserendorj who also died in a random attack 12 months ago. Most of us will have read the interview with her husband and daughter over the weekend and about the desperately sad circumstances in which they find themselves with regard to their work and housing situation.

As has been said by many and as we know from the work of Women's Aid, 244 women have been killed since 1996 at the hands of a violent perpetrator in this country. A shocking 87% knew their attacker and 62% died in their home. There are thousands more who can count sexual harassment as one of their experiences. We are grateful to Senators Boylan and Hoey for recounting their experiences because it helps others to realise that they are not alone.

This violence requires many responses. I am conscious that much has been said, but the violence requires a response from our education system to tackle the culture of laddishness, male domination, misogyny and sexism. We need many significant changes in our criminal justice system. I am reminded of my former colleague, former Deputy Kathleen Lynch, who used to talk so much about the burden of proof or how there was a burden on the survivors of domestic violence to ensure that the charges were prosecuted. The onus is on a woman, when she has been assaulted, to proceed with the charge. There can be little wonder that the rate of prosecution in domestic violence cases is so low relative to the number of calls that are made to An Garda Síochána.

We need to see changes in terms of how we support victims and survivors. I have spoken previously in the House about the very long waiting lists that so many rape crisis centres across the country are dealing with. It is an issue of resources and it is an issue of pay. It is incredible that we are bringing the pay issue into this, but it relates to retaining counsellors for rape crisis centres across the country. There is the issue of how people are supported through and after the courts process. A number of women have spoken to me about how they felt abandoned after the courts process. There has to be political leadership and I am heartened by the commitments made this week by the Minister in that regard. We look forward to the work of the gender equality committee which will be chaired by my party colleague, Deputy Bacik.

A less discussed aspect of all this, but one that is nonetheless important, is that there has to be a focus and response from our health system, particularly in mental health services. I understand there is a major undersupply of community forensic psychiatry services, particularly for young men and adolescents under the age of 18 years. We need to understand what is happening with young men and the increase in reported sexual assaults among this group. Perhaps it is the case that it was always happening but that there are more reports now or maybe there are more incidents occurring, but we need to understand. I was struck when two days after Ashling Murphy lost her life there was a newspaper report about an adolescent who was before the court for threatening and harassing a woman, a journalist in fact. The young man's father spoke in court about how he had pleaded for services for his son for many years. He felt that his plea for help had gone unanswered. As the mother of two very small boys, that sent a chill through me. That a family were seeking help and their son went on to offend in that manner is horrendous.

Over the last fortnight we have rightly expressed our outrage at the killing of Ashling Murphy and commemorated her very full life. However, there is an uncomfortable reality in the fact that this has not been extended to every other woman who has lost her life at the violent hands of a man over the past number of years. In the days after Ashling's death I was having a conversation with a person who lives on the Dublin-Wicklow border. The person spoke of the sadness about the killing of Zeinat Bashabsheh. I was shocked because I did not realise that this had happened. She was a mother of five children who had been killed on Christmas Eve. Most of us read the newspapers and watch television, but this had completely passed me by. I was horrified and ashamed that something like that had passed me by. Obviously, there is an onus on me to read every newspaper that is available, but I checked the archives of the main broadsheets this morning and two of them and the national broadcaster had no reference to her name. Perhaps there was a mention somewhere, but not when I went through their archives this morning. Yes, it was Christmas Eve and there were plenty of distractions, but we have no excuse. Every woman's death has to be properly reported and we need to be shocked. The thing is that we have got used to this happening. If there is one legacy of Ashling's death, it is that we now are taking the harassment and murder of women in violent circumstances much more seriously.

In all this we must think about women of colour, women from minority ethnic backgrounds, trans women and women who were not born here but who live here. They must be an important part of the conversation that has to happen now. We look forward to working with the Minister on the strategy that is to be developed. I conclude by expressing my condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones at the hands of a violent person over the years.