Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

Why does violence against women happen? It is because of the patriarchy. It is because we have had decades of decades, hundreds of years, where it has been acceptable to be violent towards women. We cannot just call on individual men, although allies are always welcome. It is great to have strong voices of men in the Seanad calling this out, of course, but we need a really strong response at primary school level whereby we model good behaviours. There are some amazing male mentorship programmes out there where men are engaging young men. These are so important for bringing on healthy, positive behaviours.

I know that is not what this Bill today is about but I want to stress that the Bill is only a contribution towards how we tackle gender-based violence, violence against women and domestic violence. We need to keep on this as a collective and I have seen so much passion from all of the contributors today. I hope that, on a cross-party basis and across the floor, we can continue to identify other strategies we can push for on a legislative basis because they are needed. I know that across all parties and none people are passionate about this issue. We need a collaboration because without that we will be talking about the same issues in 20 years' time.