Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-12 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel This issue has been discussed in the Chamber, the Dáil Chamber, the audiovisual room, the justice committee and many other committees. It is good that it is being discussed and different things are being highlighted. However, there is a deep frustration among many organisations like Safe Ireland and Women's Aid that we are still discussing this. There have been improvements - Acts introduced that have helped things and more refuge places - but there is still a lot more to be done. The fact that this is still continuing, not just in this country, is shocking. In Ireland, 282 women have died violently since 1996. In the North, there is a concerning figure of 30 since 2020. It has one of the worst femicide rates in the world. We need to approach this issue on an all-Ireland basis. We need shared refuge spaces. For example, I come from County Cavan, where there is no refuge. There are no refuges in Monaghan, Leitrim, Roscommon or Longford. There are plans, which are moving rapidly, for one in Monaghan. It will be some years before that is in situ and it will take even longer for one in Cavan to be provided. I welcome the fact that some safe houses will open in those counties very soon. If there are refuge spaces in Fermanagh or Armagh, there should be co-operation across the Border to assist families who seek help. There is good co-operation between Women's Aid North and South. Violent perpetrators can skip across the Border to evade arrest when it comes to a violent episode against a partner or former partner, yet are close enough to the person to still be a threat to them. That is something people fear on a regular basis. Some of the Acts that have been passed recently, such as Coco's Law and the non-fatal strangulation Act, are very welcome. Other legislation is moving through the legislative process, such as Valerie's law and Jennie's law, the domestic abuse register. Things seem very slow and we have to get the legislation right, but the sooner such laws can be enacted, the better. The guardianship of infants (amendment) Bill, or Valerie's law, refers to a parent being killed by another parent and the guardianship of children. There is also an issue when violence is perpetrated against one parent by another which does not lead to death, and children are caught in the middle. A parent who may be in prison, or who has left prison, still has guardianship rights to children. I am concerned about that. I have met women whose marriages have broken down, often as a result of violence. A prison sentence may not be involved. The children are under a court order whereby a father often has visitation rights, but the children do not want to go and are terrified and crying. What is a mother supposed to do? Is she supposed to force a little child who is crying because they do not want to go to spend time with their father? If she did not, she would be the one in violation of a court order. The courts and Tusla need to be better about listening to the voices of children. It is not about the parent's right to see their child; rather, it is about what is right for the child and whether a child has access to one or both parents. Many marriages break down, the relationship is good and children can see both parents, but where that is not the case we need to take into consideration how the children feel. The practice regarding victims counselling notes is absurd and outright wrong. When the justice committee carried out pre-legislative scrutiny of the Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill recently, there was cross-party support for a complete and unconditional ban on the use of counselling records in sexual offence trials. I hope that will be the case. Victims and survivors say that the practice is deeply traumatising, causes severe psychological harm and heightens suicide risk. I plead with the Minister to ban the use of notes in any such cases. The Istanbul Convention recommends around 500 refuge spaces according to our population. It is welcome that there will be 280 spaces by the end of this year, but that is just over half of what we require. We need many more spaces than are currently being provided. There is deep-rooted misogyny in certain organisations in our State. Unfortunately, these are the organisations that deal with victims and survivors of domestic abuse and violence, namely, our judicial system and the Garda. Any person reporting violence by a partner against them wants to be assured that they are talking to a garda who understands them and is sympathetic and not one who has a barring order against him or her for the same offence. We know there are many gardaí with barring orders, but we do not know how many because it is up to them to self-disclose. If that is the case, most will not do so. That needs to be changed. We need to make sure that a garda who has a barring order for domestic violence is not in a position to deal with people reporting such cases. In the case of the Judiciary, I know of certain women who will not go to court when a certain judge is sitting because they know they will not get a barring, safety or protection order. They wait for another day and put themselves in danger because they consider it to be a waste of time and pointless. We need an attitudinal change and a lot more education, especially among our young men. We need men to call out this abuse in a much more vocal manner. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:55+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-12