An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19 ============================================================ Alison Comyn (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach I want to speak about the really stark report from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre that was launched this morning, but before I do, I have to refute the opinion of Senator Keogan about Fianna Fáil, an incredible party that I am proud to be a member of. We are the longest-serving party in Europe. We were responsible for Ireland joining the EU. Seán Lemass and Countess Markievicz brought in some incredible programmes. Fianna Fáil introduced free education, free travel, Aer Lingus and, even to this day, the smoking ban. Ireland has the best education in Europe and a fantastic programme of supporting business. I am sure many of my party colleagues will speak of the same. It does not look like the same party that I heard of from Senator Keogan. I was at the launch of the annual report of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. The figures are very stark. Almost 24,000 contacts were made to its services last year. That figure is up on 2024's and almost a third higher than it was just three years ago. What is going on with our men and women? How did we get here in 2026? These are not just statistics in a report, but people, many of them women. However, we also heard this morning of the incredible stories of two brave male survivors of rape, Tom Ryan and Jordan Gregory. All who call this line are reaching out because something traumatic has happened to them or because something that happened years ago is now hitting home with them. As chair of the Oireachtas women's caucus and as someone working closely day by day on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, I find these figures heartbreaking, frightening and totally unacceptable. This is not a marginal issue. It is happening in every county, town and community and is too often hidden by shame and fear. I am especially concerned by the rise in cyber abuse and image-based sexual abuse. The report refers to 119 callers affected by this, up 73 from the previous year, with young adults and adolescents heavily represented. This needs to stop us in our tracks, because these are crimes. Sexual violence is a crime. Image-based sexual abuse is a crime. We are sending a clear message to everybody that this is not acceptable. I will post a link to the full report on my social media. I urge people to read it, but I would just like to give the hotline number for the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. For anyone experiencing any kind of sexual violence, recent or historic, please know that support is available. The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-hour national helpline is 1800 778888. Go raibh maith agaibh. --- 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/2026-05-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-19