Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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153. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if her attention has been drawn to the UK government awareness campaign on the issue of the prevalence of sexual violence against women and girls, entitled “ENOUGH”; if she will consider developing and funding a similar campaign in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56863/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the UK Home Office's 'Enough' Campaign and congratulate them for their work on it. Such campaigns are vital in letting society know we all have a role in tackling Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence.

My own Department has made significant commitments to tackling DSGBV through major awareness raising campaigns, since 2016, on both a national and local level.

Since 2016, a series of high impact media campaigns, developed to reach a national audience through many mediums including TV, cinema, radio, outdoor, social and digital advertising, have been launched.

The ultimate goal of all these campaigns is to reduce and prevent the incidence of domestic, sexual violence and gender-based violence which affects the lives of too many people, both directly and indirectly, and thereby make Ireland a much safer society.

Prior to 2016, the Department of Justice funded up to 60 organisations annually to promote awareness of domestic and sexual violence and services. This fragmented approach resulted in diverse messaging and duplication of materials which were mainly focused on raising awareness of victim services.

The Department had a call from NGOs in the DSGBV sector to change societal attitudes in 2015. This call fed into the development of Second National Strategy on DSGBBV which included a key action to launch a six year, two part, national awareness campaign with the following aims:

- to increase the awareness of domestic and sexual violence;

- to bring about a change in long established societal behaviours and attitudes and

- to activate bystanders with the aim of decreasing and preventing this violence.

This work has continued since then through the development of a number of campaigns in the DSGBV sphere, which have been developed in partnership with frontline service providers.

Key actions contained in Zero Tolerance, our Third National Strategy on domestic, sexual and gender based violence which I launched earlier this year, will build on and expand the reach of a number of the successful campaigns developed under the Second National Strategy.

Information on these campaigns is contained below for the information of the Deputy, including in respect of where they are aligned in design and purpose to the UK Home Office's 'Enough' campaign.

‘What Would You do?’ (If you witnessed domestic violence)

‘What Would You do?’ (If you witnessed domestic violence) was launched by the then Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality in November 2016 and ran until the end of 2018.The campaign recognised that both women and men are victims of domestic violence.

The ‘What would you do?’ campaign was a high impact media campaign to reach a national audience featuring TV, cinema, radio, outdoor, social and digital advertising.The call to action directed people to search the campaign website whatwouldyoudo.ie for information and advice on how to help and support victims of domestic violence.

No Excuses

in 2019 the Department launched a major national awareness campaign on sexual harassment and sexual violence. ‘No Excuses’was a high impact media campaign designed to reach a national audience.

The campaign ads feature both male and female perpetrators and victims in various situations where sexual harassment and sexual violence can occur.

The Deputy may be pleased to learn that there are many similarities between the UK 'Enough' campaign and our own 'No Excuses' campaign. Both campaign websites are laid out in a similar manner and have a focus on informing bystanders about safe ways they can intervene if they witness incidences of DSGBV.

Still Here

The Still Here campaign was launched in April 2020 to reassure victims of domestic violence that frontline services and the full force of the Justice System were ‘still here’ for them during the pandemic, and that victims were being prioritised. The campaign highlighted a tragic reality that for many people in Ireland during the pandemic, their home is not a safe place, especially during lockdown periods that were necessary to curtail the spread of Covid-19.

We intend to run the Still Here campaign again over the Christmas period to let victims know support is still available to them during the festive period, a time when we know incidences of such violence increase.

Intimate Image Abuse

In September 2021, my Department launched a campaign to raise awareness of image-based sexual abuse and to better inform people of Coco's Law, which was introduced to combat it.

At its core, the campaign aims to educate wider Irish society that sharing intimate images without consent is socially unacceptable, has harmful consequences and there is legislation in place with appropriate punitive measures that will challenge these actions, regardless of a persons motivation for doing so.

This campaign is currently running on TV and across various mediums and will be further developed in 2023 to raise awareness of the fact that threatening to share intimate images without consent is also a criminal offence.