Domestic violence supports come ‘too late’ for many victims in Ireland
The event, entitled Domestic Violence Laws and Processes, was held in University College Cork.
Organiser Louise Crowley, a senior lecturer in the School of Law at UCC, said domestic violence is a crucial matter of public policy and that the overarching aim of any legislation associated with it should be to protect the vulnerable.
However, she queried whether there were inadequacies in the existing regulatory framework in light of “alarming” statistics from Women’s Aid which indicate that one in five Irish women have suffered some form of domestic abuse at some stage in their lives.
“In failing to adequately intervene with the perpetrator, are we failing the victim?” she asked. “Where are they in Irish law? They are nowhere really.”
She added that the only remedy appeared to be punishment, but that there was a significant gap in addressing the offending behaviour, particularly for men who carry out domestic violence but who never come to the attention of the criminal justice system.
Referring to research conducted in conjunction with the Cork branch of MOVE (Men Overcoming Violence), she said 50% of those attending special workshops there had never come before the courts, which she said raised a question over whether there was a high threshold for legal intervention in those cases.
Referring to what the men at MOVE had said, “the general sense was that it took a lot for it to come before the court and that it [the court] was quite lenient”.
However, she said making attendance at services such as MOVE mandatory could have a negative impact as “you will have men who do not want to be there”.
Margaret O’Keeffe, a lecturer in community development in Cork Institute of Technology and who also works with MOVE, said: “We are intervening at a tertiary level and it is often far too late.”
Tom Meagher of the White Ribbon campaign said that men were raised to be “invulnerable rather than vulnerable”, claiming: “Men are told that control means dominance.”
He said children should be educated in primary school on masculinity, and effort was needed to “break the notion of masculinity that confuses violence with strength”.
His view was echoed by Fermoy-based Garda Sgt Andrew Geary, who also said regarding Ireland’s common law system, that “the victim gets no protection”.
“As a society we have definitely left the definition of ‘victim’ to the side,” he added.
The number of domestic violence offences registered by the Probation Service — such as breaking barring orders — is low, with 109 so far this year and 128 in the whole of 2014.
Ailish Glennon, regional manager with the Irish Probation service for the West/North West and Westmeath areas, said: “Access to domestic violence programmes is inconsistent across the country.
“They are not everywhere. In parts of my region, in the west of Ireland and Donegal, they do not exist. That is a gap.”
Kate FitzGibbon of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, said she believed education of the judiciary was important.
