Rapes ‘committed with impunity’

Society should be shouting from the rooftops and insisting more be done to stop the escalation of rape attacks, according to the head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

Adding her voice to the worldwide condemnation of the vicious gang rape that led to the death of a 23-year-old Indian student, Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop claimed most rapes in this country go unpunished.

“There were 572 officially reported rapes in New Delhi in 2011. In Dublin last year the trained volunteer cohort of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre accompanied 270 victims of recent rape and sexual assault to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in the Rotunda Hospital. The Savi (Sexual Assault and Violence in Ireland) report, published in 2002, told us that only one in 10 report these heinous crimes to the gardaí. Most rapes in this country are committed with impunity.”