Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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288. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will consider the establishment of a rapporteur for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence to monitor Ireland’s compliance with its domestic and international legal obligations under the Istanbul Convention and implementation of the Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. [2557/23]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, Ireland signed the Istanbul Convention in November 2015. At that time a number of legislative and administrative actions were identified as necessary to enable Ireland’s ratification of the Convention. These actions were incorporated into the Second National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence 2016-2021, which was launched the following year.

Work on implementing the actions necessary to ratify the Convention was carried out by Government Departments and Agencies and on 8 March 2019, International Women’s Day, Ireland ratified the Convention.

I can advise the Deputy that under the Second National Strategy on Domestic Sexual and Gender- Based Violence, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), in their role as Ireland’s national human rights and equality body, were nominated as the independent body to actively participate in monitoring the implementation of the Convention in Ireland and to independently report to the Council of Europe’s expert body (called GREVIO) on Ireland's progress to combat and prevent violence against women and domestic violence.