Outdated abuse legislation ‘putting unmarried parents at risk’

HUNDREDS of thousands of unmarried parents are being put at risk of violent partners because of outdated domestic abuse legislation, a manifesto launch in Dublin heard yesterday.

Research in the manifesto has revealed that two-thirds of domestic violence victims who come through refuge centres are abused during custody visits.

Reacting, the Chief executive officer with the One Parent Exchange Network, Frances Byrne, said a sizeable portion of modern Irish society was now falling outside the protection of family law because they are not married.

Ms Byrne also pointed out that a worrying total of ten barring-order cases are being struck out of Dublin’s family courts every week on the grounds of ineligibility.

These barring orders are being struck out, she suggested, because the people involved had not been living together long enough or the alleged abuse was happening during agreed custody visits. She also said that the Domestic Violence Act was in urgent need of reform, not least because it did not cover the country’s 300,000 separated or unmarried cohabiting couples.

“The fastest growing family type in the state is co-habiting couples. There are now 121,000 of them and 44,000 of them have children but they still operate in a grey area if violence occurs.

“There is only one type of family recognised by the law and there does not seem to be any political party willing to grasp the nettle on this one,” she said.

Ms Byrne was speaking at the launch of a Women’s Aid manifesto ahead of this year’s General Election.

In the manifesto, Women’s Aid revealed the results of in-house research on the frequency of abuse.

This unpublished work found two-thirds of victims who came through refuges were abused during custody visits. This included partners using children as emotional weapons to further the abuse.

In drawing up the manifesto, Women’s Aid had questionnaires filled out by women attending 66 refuge centres, their support services and more than 100 Family Resource Centres and Community Development Projects.

The results of those surveys show that four-fifths of respondents rated the performance of the coalition to be either poor or very poor.

Women’s Aid Director Margaret Martin said political parties needed to act and called on all those involved in support services to ensure the issue was given a high priority at local level in the build up to the election.

“I would say... lets put the pressure on now and see what level of political will there is going to be after the General Election,” she said.

Chair of yesterday’s launch Ursula Regan said the services for domestic violence had “lived off crumbs” for the past ten years.

She said the current level of service was an appalling indictment of the Government’s commitment to deal with the problems.