Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)

Three years ago, our nation was shaken by the brutal murder of Aisling Murphy, a young woman who was taken away when her whole life was ahead of her. It certainly struck a chord all across Ireland. We had hoped it would be a turning point across society when it comes to violence against women by males. We had hoped it would be confronted with urgency, honesty and a lasting change. Women's Aid recently reported that women are no safer today than they were the day Aisling was murdered. Since 1996, 275 women have been violently killed in the Republic. Some 66% of them were killed while within the protection of their own homes and 55% were killed by their partners or ex-partners. In the past year alone, An Garda Síochána responded to 65,000 incidents of domestic abuse. That comes to 1,250 such incidents every week.

The statistics are awful. Even since Aisling died, 30 more women have been killed. This cannot go on. One life lost is one too many. We must adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of male violence against women. This means more than just words. It means investment, not only in the justice system but also in the education system. We need to look at some uncomfortable truths. In our society, 70% of incidents of domestic abuse involve alcohol. Our alcohol strategy is not geared to making a difference in this regard. Violence against women is not women's problem; it is a whole-of-society problem. It seems to start at a very young age, as we have seen recently with "Adolescence" on Netflix, which was the latter's top downloaded series. If we are talking about serious change, it is time we stopped waiting and mourning at funerals and started acting in this area.