Staffing and resourcing issues at Cuan, the State’s main sexual violence agency, led to a delay in carrying out parts of Ireland’s plan to end sexual violence.
The overwhelming majority of the 95 measures in the Government’s own plan were not completed by the end of last year. However, according to the Department of Justice, 70 were “on track” to be achieved this year – the final year of the plan.
Zero Tolerance, the third national strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, was published in 2022 and is due to expire this year. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan will shortly instruct his officials to begin work on the fourth national strategy, which will be announced next year.
According to a report setting out how the plan was implemented in 2025, there were “major delivery issues” with a small minority of actions in the plan. These included: a research and data plan to gauge the current scale of sexual violence in Ireland; and a plan to set out referral pathways for survivors fleeing domestic violence who need access to emergency accommodation.
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Cuan, the State agency responsible for bringing in these new measures, is the first dedicated agency for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, which was set up under the same Zero Tolerance plan.
A Cuan spokeswoman said the “major delivery issues” that had slowed down a new project collecting data on the scale of sexual violence in Ireland “relates primarily to staffing and resourcing of Cuan’s research and data function. This will be addressed in 2026”.
This project is separate to a national prevalence study of sexual violence, which was first published by the CSO in 2023 and which will be carried out each decade.
Staffing and resourcing issues were also blamed for a delay in bringing forward a new porn literacy strategy. According to Cuan, this delay “has arisen primarily due to resourcing constraints and the need to secure specialised external expertise to support development”. The agency said it had hired a new staff member and would be hiring more.
It is understood that online sexual abuse and access to pornography will be raised by O’Callaghan during Ireland’s upcoming presidency of the Council of the European Union.
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The Zero Tolerance strategy had also committed to the development of a multiannual service development plan for emergency accommodation, specifying referral pathways and service models. Cuan said this was delayed due to issues with “staffing and specialised expertise” but that the Department of Justice was addressing the issue and “substantial” work would be done in 2026.
According to the 2025 implementation plan, six actions experienced “major issues”, including development of a model to manage the risk of those already within the prison system with a history of domestic violence, and a similar plan to refer those in custody to psychology services.
Fifteen actions were experiencing “minor issues” and four were complete.
