Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan insists that Garda services are in place to respond to reports of domestic violence.

The Sexual Violence Centre Cork said women in violent relationships are in a “nightmare situation” and feared the violence could “ramp up”.

The sentencing of a man to 21 months for the new offence – which was enacted into law a year ago – comes as gardai reveal they are investigating 35 such incidents.

Women's Aid has welcomed the first conviction in Ireland for the crime of coercive control in Donegal.

Political parties are being criticised for not making domestic violence an issue in the general election campaign.

Women's Aid say that six women have been killed this year in domestic violence incidents.

Two separate reports have revealed the level of abuse and harassment suffered by women in Ireland, and raise further concerns that there is an under-reporting of the violence they face.

Nine in ten women who have been killed in Ireland over the past 23 years have died at the hands of a man they knew.

With strangers making up just 13% of perpetrators of female homicide in Ireland, almost nine in 10 of these women have been killed by a man known to them.

A new app will connect victims of domestic violence and abuse to support services across the country.

There were 20,000 incidents of domestic violence against women and children last year.

A total of 36 people were stopped by gardaí on suspicion of having purchased sexual services from a prostitute over the weekend.

Ruhama — the frontline service for those affected by prostitution — assisted 109 victims of sex trafficking last year, most of them women.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has launched a revamped website highlighting the crime of human trafficking in Ireland.

A hard-hitting video campaign has laid bare the grim reality for victims of Ireland's sex trade.

African women, mainly Nigerian, accounted for two-thirds of all victims of sex trafficking assisted by an Irish charity last year.

What is seldom is wonderful, we are told. Given the treacherous nature of political life, politicians who are willing to give a straight answer to a straight question are as rare as pigs flying in the sky. writes Political Editor Daniel McConnell.

A charity working with women in the sex trade has said it has helped 94 suspected of being trafficked.

The amount of women in the sex trade accessing support services increased by 37% last year.

The Immigrant Council of Ireland claims organised crime gangs are running an international sex trafficking network stretching from Nigeria and Cameroon to Ireland — making them an estimated €600,000 per day.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is to proceed with plans to criminalise people who pay for sex, despite calls by Amnesty International for all aspects of sex work to be decriminalised.

Frontline agencies representing victims of sex trafficking have called for an independent rapporteur to assess how effectively victims are being supported.

Sex predators will face jail terms of between 10 and 14 years for using the internet to groom minors or force them to share explicit images, under laws aimed at strengthening child protection.

Organised criminal gangs prostituting vulnerable women in Northern Ireland are set to move into the “lucrative” market in the Republic unless the Government introduces laws to tackle the sex industry.

Eighty-three women supported by an agency working with prostitutes last year were trafficked to Ireland, the organisation has claimed.

Anti-prostitution campaigners have warned that the North’s decision to criminalise the buyers of sex could mean more pimps choosing to base their prostitution operations south of the border.

Ireland has been named as a "destination, source, and transit country" for people being trafficked for sexual and labour exploitation in a new US State Department report.

A sex worker has claimed that proposed reforms to Ireland’s laws on prostitution will make the industry even more dangerous for women.

Indoor prostitution is just as dangerous as outdoor sex work and women operating behind closed doors suffer longer and more violent sex attacks and are under the control of organised crime gangs.

A record 258 women accessed the services of Ruhama, an outreach support organisation for victims of prostitution and sex trafficking, last year.

Campaigners have welcomed a unanimous call by an Oireachtas committee for the buyers of sex — but not the sellers — to be criminalised.

A FORMER, well-paid HSE employee, Mia became a prostitute on Dublin’s Burlington Road, selling herself for €40 to feed a drug habit.

Anti-prostitution advocates will today tell the Oireachtas Justice Committee why they want the buyers of sex to be targeted by new laws aimed at ending the exploitation, abuse, and trafficking of women and children in this country.