Helen McEntee pledges to deliver on new action plan for ‘zero tolerance’ of domestic violence

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has pledged to deliver on an ambitious action plan aimed at ensuring “zero tolerance” across Irish society for domestic and gender-based violence.

The “grim truth” of the scale of domestic violence in Ireland is further exposed by the Women’s Aid impact report for 2021, Ms McEntee said.

The aim of the third national strategy on gender-based violence and accompanying action plan is to ensure those who engage with the system “are treated with respect, dignity and empathy by everyone they come into contact with from the outset”, she said.

The Minister was addressing a webinar on Tuesday hosted by Women’s Aid to discuss the impact of the report disclosing what the organisation’s chief executive Sarah Benson, described as “shocking” levels of abuse in a single year but reflecting only “the tip of the iceberg”.

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The report revealed 26,906 contacts were made to Women’s Aid last year during which 33,831 disclosures of abuse against women and children were made, including 4,707 cases of physical, and 1,104 cases of sexual, abuse against women.

Women had reported assaults with weapons, constant surveillance and monitoring, relentless putdowns and humiliation, taking and sharing of intimate images online, complete control over all financial expenditure, sexual assault, rape and having their own, or their children’s lives, threatened. The impact on the women and children affected was “chilling”, Ms Benson said.

Behind the “stark” figures are women and children “whose lives have been absolutely devastated”, the Minister said.

The gender-based violence strategy, to be unveiled within weeks, will set out a “very high” level of ambition, she said.

“This new strategy will be and must be the most ambitious to date and I intend to deliver on that.”

The input from Women’s Aid and all partner organisations is “crucial” to identifying the changes to be made and the collaborative approach in developing the new strategy has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

The Minister extended a special word to survivors of domestic abuse attending the webinar and to family members bereaved because of domestic homicide. “The names and lives behind these tragic events will never be forgotten and continue to inspire our push for improvements.”

“Ours is a shared goal, I am clear and I am a firm believer of that, a society where there is zero tolerance of domestic violence against women and girls.”

Ms Benson said one in four women in Ireland is targeted during their lifetime by current or former partners. While Women’s Aid recognised that abuse also impacts on men and LGBT communities, this is a “heavily gendered” issue.

The demand for the domestic violence services provided by Women’s Aid and other agencies continues unabated into this year, she said.

Louise Crowley, professor of family law at UCC, spoke about the bystander intervention programme to educate staff and students to challenge the normalisation of sexual abuse and to recognise their role as bystanders to effect change.

Seven second-level schools had by late 2021 signed up for a pilot for final-year students at secondary schools but, after the killing of primary school teacher Aisling Murphy in Tullamore last January, 70 more schools indicated they wanted to be involved, she said.

Ultimately, 45 schools and 14 teachers were trained and the programme will be rolled out during this year. Feedback from teachers includes observations on the need for similar initiatives for first-year school students, for reasons including first-year girls being pressurised to provide nude photos of themselves, she said.

Prof Crowley said all of us have a responsibility to step up and speak out about unacceptable behaviour and all men and boys must particularly stand in solidarity with women and girls, learn to recognise all forms of unacceptable behaviour and choose to proactively engage to stop it.

She called for bystander-type initiatives to be extended into all sectors, including the workplace and youth and sporting organisations.

Asked about how to get past the “it’s not all men” response to sexual violence, Prof Crowley said it is important both to recognise it is not all men and to focus on the power all men have to change attitudes.

The fault lies with those men “who do nothing about it”, she said. “When men recognise that, they become allies very quickly.”