Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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305. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the specific measures, strategies, or initiatives he intends to implement to eliminate violence against women in Ireland; if he will provide details of any funding, resources, or legislative proposals allocated to this issue; and if the timeline and targets for achieving measurable reductions in domestic and gender-based violence across the country. [49417/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I remain fully committed to a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence (DSGBV) and to addressing the societal conditions in which it persists.

In January 2024, the Government established Cuan, the statutory DSGBV agency. Cuan coordinates the implementation of the Third National Strategy, ensuring services, training, and public awareness initiatives are effectively delivered nationwide.

I am advancing legislative measures to strengthen protections for victims, including provisions to remove guardianship rights in cases where an individual is convicted of killing a partner or the parent of their child, as well as safeguards to limit access to counselling records in legal proceedings. Additionally, work is underway to establish a mechanism through the courts system whereby a person can find out if their partner has a previous conviction for an offence against an intimate partner, or former intimate partner, subject to judicial discretion and the victim’s consent.

The Government has also committed substantial resources to combating DSGBV, with funding for DSGBV services increasing to €70 million under Budget 2025 and tripling since 2022.

In June, I published the third and final implementation plan for the Zero Tolerance Strategy, which contains 95 actions across the strategy’s four pillars of Protection, Prevention, Prosecution and Policy Co-ordination. The Implementation Plan includes a bespoke monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework which has been developed and strengthened for an enhanced focus on collective action, delivery, and measurement.

Priority areas include continuing national leadership and cross government alignment, expanding refuge accommodation, with a commitment to provide 287 safe accommodation spaces by the end of 2026, delivering a comprehensive national emergency domestic violence accommodation plan, advancing legislative reform, continuing to deliver impactful awareness campaigns on sexual consent and pathways to safety, and a comprehensive set of training actions to upskill frontline professionals across the health and social care sector, DSGBV services, the judiciary, courts and other justice agencies.

Alongside this, I published a Progress Report on the strategy, covering the period July to December 2024, which highlights continued progress across government and the sector in implementing the Zero Tolerance strategy.

Key achievements during the reporting period include:

• expanding emergency accommodation capacity including launch of a state-of-the-art refuge facility in Wexford and strengthening the pipeline for refuge and safe home expansion
• enactment of the Family Courts Act 2024 providing for the establishment of family court divisions within the existing court structures including a Family High Court, a Family Circuit Court and a Family District Court
• convening of a National Consent Forum
• engagement with the Central Statistics Office (CSO) to scope the development of a Domestic Violence survey to commence in 2025.