Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

To any man who assaults a woman: shame on you. To any man who monitors a woman, controls her moves, where she is, what she is doing, her finances: shame on you. To any man who grabs his partner's phone to look at who she is speaking to: shame on you. To any man who makes a woman feel isolated, hopeless, suicidal, with nowhere to turn, then shame on you. To any man who allows his children to see any of this behaviour, what impact are you having on their lives? Shame on you.

Today, like my colleague, we read in the annual report for Women's Aid that we have recorded the highest level of both contact by victims-survivors and disclosures of domestic abuse in its 50-year history. Behind every woman and child is a family navigating fear and trauma. In Ireland, one in three women will be subjected to psychological, physical and sexual abuse by a partner or ex-partner. Last year, women told Women's Aid that their partners or ex-partners were subjecting them to a broad and brutal pattern of abuse. The impacts on these women were chilling and ranged from exhaustion, isolation, hopelessness and serious injury, with some women suffering miscarriages. In 2024, Women's Aid national and regional front-line services were contacted 32,000 times. What I learned in all of this is that when a woman is brave enough to get out and leave her partner, 33% of them are still being subjected to domestic abuse. Specialist services are still overstretched and underfunded and therefore challenged to meet ever-increasing demand, especially to meet the needs of more marginalised and minoritised women. Resourcing by the Government and implementation of the third national domestic, sexual and gender-based violence strategy through coherent cross-government co-operation remains crucial to effectively reduce the scale and impacts of violence against women and children in Ireland.

The Minister, Deputy McEntee, did so much groundbreaking work in this area, including the launch of Cuan, the new statutory domestic, sexual and gender-based violence agency. I was delighted to see the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, launching the final implementation plan for a zero tolerance strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence yesterday. We need to ensure we hold a cross-Department approach to support these organisations to do their job. I encourage the Leader to discuss this with the relevant Departments. It involves housing, justice, migration and public expenditure, and we badly need it. As my colleague, Senator O'Loughlin, said, there needs to be a committee set up to discuss it. To think that we are at an overall 50-year high for domestic abuse in Ireland in 2025 is absolutely disgraceful.