Over 4,000 victims of rape and sexual abuse (4,046) made contact with a 24 hour helpline for the first time last year.

Up to 16% of students have suffered an unwanted sexual experience at college or university, a study found.

More than 3,000 children who reported they were sexually abused last year cannot access therapy from the HSE — unless they live in Dublin or Limerick.

School programmes to educate young people about domestic and sexual violence are not working, according to a study.

Verbal abuse can “slowly deaden someone from the inside out” and be just as destructive as physical abuse, domestic abuse campaigners have warned.

The number of men seeking help with domestic abuse has surged in the past two years, primarily due to the impact of the recession.

THE Government is planning to pilot a “one-stop shop” for victims of domestic and sexual violence in 2011.

The regular disclosure of incidents of domestic and sexual violence has led to one professor describing this ongoing problem as a national crisis, writes Cormac O’Keeffe

GIVING your child free reign on the internet is the same as letting them loose on a busy street or shopping centre, according to the Government’s sexual and domestic violence agency.

ALMOST half of all Irish people know someone who has been a victim of domestic violence but few would try to help a neighbour being abused in the home, shocking new figures reveal.

The public were today urged to come forward if they know someone suffering domestic abuse as shocking new figures reveal almost a third of women fear they or someone close to them will become victims of violence at home.

Less than four out of ten people in the Republic of Ireland would try to help a neighbour suffering domestic violence, a survey will reveal next month.

DOMESTIC violence costs the country €2.2 billion a year but efforts to combat the problem will not be protected from any potential cutbacks to the National Development Plan (NDP).

International experts will tackle the subject of domestic violence at a two-day conference opening today.

IRELAND has been highlighted by human rights group Amnesty International for failing to protect vulnerable children and the mentally ill and resisting probes into United States intelligence agencies’ use of Shannon Airport.

THE first strategic meeting of the anti-domestic violence lobby yesterday heard how people were dying because life-saving information was being ignored.

THE National Domestic Violence Intervention Agency will today launch an independent national framework for reforming how cases are dealt with because of the Government’s failure to make the necessary changes.

Newly installed Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy today set out his priorities for his first full year in charge targeting a modest 2% increase in detection rates.

IN RESPONSE to your report on the domestic violence code (December 3), I would like to clarify that the South East Domestic Violence Intervention Programme is not funded by the Community Development Programme, but by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform through the new government office, Cosc.

A taskforce and more specially trained gardaí are needed to tackle domestic violence in homes across Ireland, it was claimed today.

AS he prepares to set out next year’s policing priorities for the gardaí, Justice Minister Brian Lenihan addressed the Dáil yesterday on the subject of crime. The following are edited extracts:

FOLLOWING a special meeting of the Violence Against Women (VAW) non-governmental sector, we strongly rejected the recently announced COSC: the Irish Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (Irish Examiner, May 17).

Rape victims and women forced in to trafficking, prostitution and pornography will not be protected by a new government body, it was claimed today.

WOMEN’S groups have expressed disappointment at the limited remit of a long-awaited domestic violence office, details of which were announced yesterday.

IN 1995 he was sentenced to 238 years imprisonment, the longest sentence in Irish legal history, today he walks free.