Since the publication recently of the findings of a report commissioned by the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Services, again casting the gravest doubts on popular assumptions about domestic violence, the silence from official and political quarters, as well as the normally vocal vested interests, has been deafening.
The survey, conducted among 530 clients of MRCS, revealed that, of the troubled relationships in which they were called upon to assist, nearly 50 per cent involved domestic violence, with women significantly the more likely instigators.
Broadly, the findings were that one in three relationships were subject to mutually inflicted violence; one in four demonstrated violence initiated by the male, as against two in five in which the violence was initiated by the female partner. Apart from a couple of the usual suspects, who staggered out mouthing the old mantras, the feminist ayatollahs have been uncharacteristically silent.
These findings, though in harmony with many international surveys, are utterly in conflict with our present official and cultural belief system, which holds that, in all but the most eccentric circumstance, violence between men and women is instigated by males.
The survival of this utterly false belief is the result not of the assimilation of the lived experience of human beings, but of the relentless propaganda of vested interests, primarily feminists and those in the highly lucrative violence-against-women industry.
The beliefs thus fostered are maintained in all agencies responsible for addressing difficulties in relationships between men and women, including social services, the Garda Siochana, the medical and legal professions and the judiciary. These beliefs are also held by politicians who frame legislation in this area.
The consequences of these beliefs reach into the most intimate crevices of this society, affecting hugely the lives of men, women and children. Their corrosive effects act upon some of the most vital and sacred values of democratic society. The present belief system casts a shadow over all court proceedings affecting the lives of Irish families, because its assumptions impinge adversely on the chances of any adult male being perceived as a decent husband, father or human being.
But there are many within those systems and institutions who have become gravely worried by the abuses they perceive. In an address earlier this year to a conference dedicated to finding effective remedies under the European Convention on Human Rights, a district justice, Judge Gerard Haughton, described the provisions for interim barring orders under Section 4 of the Domestic Violence Act, 1996, as an infringement of the rights of men under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
In the Dublin Metropolitan District, interim barring orders are handed out at the rate of about 12 a week, which means 12 men forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to enter their own homes, and this on the basis of ex parte orders issued on the uncorroborated word of women with the most obvious interest in having their partners so restricted. Of 10 orders extracted at random by Judge Haughton, the average duration of the order was more than six weeks, and one was for four months. All were granted ex parte.
Judge Haughton commented: "There can be no argument with the proposition that to order an individual out of his family dwelling is almost as serious and far-reaching as taking children into care". He contrasted the provisions of the Child Care Act, 1991, which stipulates that an emergency or interim care order in respect of a child can be granted for a maximum of eight days, with the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, 1996, which place no limit on the period for which an interim barring order can be granted.
He argued that this raised questions about the constitutionality of Section 4 of the Domestic Violence Act, 1996: "I am personally amazed that there has been neither challenge to the section or any judicial review of the granting of interim barring orders for such lengthy periods . . . It seems to me that the granting of such orders on an ex parte basis for more than seven to 14 days at the maximum is not defensible on constitutional grounds alone."
He also stated his belief that this section was in breach of Article 16 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires "a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time".
"Picture the situation," he concluded, "where a guard is knocking on your door with a court order putting you out of your house for up to four months without you having been heard on the application and without being told the reasons why. I strongly suggest that in these circumstances your rights under the European Convention on Human Rights have gone right out the door with you."
The Domestic Violence Act, 1996, is all but invariably used against men, reflecting its origins in the propagandistic clamouring of the violence-against-women industry. That it ever got on to the statute books is both an extraordinary indictment of the quality of our concepts of justice and equality and a tribute to the propagandistic talents of Irish feminists.
jwaters@irish-times.ie