Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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163. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will be signing the European Convention on Violence against Women; the reason he has not signed it to date; if he will provide a date for the signing to take place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28118/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Ireland supports, in principle, the aims and terms of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. It is a detailed Convention with a very broad scope across a number of policy areas with potential policy and legislative implications. The provisions of the Convention and the legislative and administrative arrangements that would be necessary to allow signature and ratification of the Convention by Ireland are being examined in conjunction with the government commitment to introduce consolidated and reformed domestic violence legislation to address all aspects of domestic violence, threatened violence and intimidation, in a way that provides protection to victims.

However, a particular difficulty to be addressed in Ireland’s consideration of the Convention relates to reconciling property rights under the Irish constitution with the requirement under Article 52 of the Convention - the availability of emergency barring orders. The development of the consolidated and reformed legislation, including consideration of the Convention provisions, will be progressed as soon as possible having regard to the need for consultations and other legislative priorities in my Department. I should also inform you that, to date, 30 Council of Europe member states have signed the Convention of which four have ratified it. Of these just one EU member state, Portugal, has as yet ratified the convention. The convention has not yet entered into force as this requires at least ten ratifications, including 8 Council of Europe member states.