Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In today's Irish Examinerthere is a worrying article by Ciaea Phelan on the delays for people suffering from domestic violence regarding their cases going to court. Our colleague, Senator Martin, deals with domestic violence in his Bill which will be discussed this afternoon, but this is an issue that warrants scrutiny by the Seanad. People brave enough to report and make a complaint about being abused and treated badly at home should not suffer further due to a delay in getting justice.

People who suffer domestic violence and abuse should have their cases fast-tracked. There needs to be a system within the Judiciary where a domestic violence case is dealt with very quickly. It should happen in a matter of days, not weeks. The national situation is a four-month delay. In my county, Clare, the delay is eight weeks, which is still unacceptable. These things should be dealt with in eight days, not eight weeks. It should be dealt with in four days, not four months. The delay in this issue is causing extra and unnecessary trauma and should be dealt with.

On one other issue, the 9% VAT rate is being discussed at the moment by the Government. I know for a fact that if the 9% VAT rate goes up to 13.5%, people are going to lose their jobs in County Clare. We cannot allow that to happen, particularly when we are dealing with the situation in Ukraine and the challenges the tourism industry is facing anyway. We need to leave that support in place so that jobs and businesses are protected over the next months as they head into the summer period so they can make the moneys they need to get through a difficult winter with fuel, energy and staff costs and the myriad challenges the tourism industry faces at the moment. The last thing this Government needs to do is increase the VAT rate from 9% to 13.5%.