Elaine Loughlin: Long history of empty promises in response to violence against women
Elaine Loughlin On the Plinth
Tomorrow, TDs will stand up in the Dáil to add to the millions of words that have been uttered and written since the horrific killing of Ashling Murphy.
While words have helped us all to express the overwhelming feelings of sorrow, fear, anger and hopelessness in the wake of the murder, they are no longer enough.
We cannot as a country let this moment fall away.
Two years before Ashling Murphy was born, a comprehsive government taskforce report on violence against women was published.
“This report sends a powerful signal from the Government. It says loud and clear that our society unambiguously condemns and abhors violence against women; that victims of violence must be treated with dignity and respect; that an adequate network of services must be in place to meet their needs; and that those who perpetrate such violence can draw no comfort or tolerance from our society," then junior minister and chair of the task force, Eithne Fitzgerald wrote in the forward to the 1997 document.
And yet, 25 years later here we are.
The inaction of those in power to the actions of men, which has allowed this toxic culture to fester, has been a factor since the foundation of this State.
Throughout the 1970s, GP Mary Randles would leave her young family to cover the night shift at the sexual assault treatment unit in Dublin's Rotunda Hospital.
Victims were referred to the unit by the gardaí: "Most often we would have one case, but it wouldn't be unusual to have two in one night, I can remember coming home and having to head off again. But God knows how many girls just went home, you know.
"I remember the statistics were one in five reported it, one in five of those got to court, and one in five was a conviction," she said.
Fifty years on, a piecemeal approach of sporadic reports and ad-hoc funding for all forms of violence and abuse against women, means little has changed.
It is now estimated that just 14% of rapes reported to gardaí actually end up in court and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre believes that 90% victims do not report such crimes at all.
In recent days, Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said a “zero-tolerance” approach will be central in a new Government strategy tackling gender-based violence, due to be published in March.
But previous reports have sat on shelves until they became dog-eared and yellowed.
It is two decades since the landmark Savi report was published, since then other documents have been written including two national strategies on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence have been compiled running from 2010-2014 and 2016-2021.
The 1997 task force set out key recommendations on the changes required across justice, housing, education, policing and healthcare, yet many of these recommendations have yet to be implemented and will probably again feature in the current Government's yet-to-be published strategy.
Looking at the supports available to women who have experienced abuse at the hands of men, the 25-year-old report stated: "When dealing with violence, the task force strongly advocates that women and children should be facilitated to remain in their home, or existing accommodation, whenever it is safe and practical for them to do so.
"Where not possible, refuges fully staffed and resourced should be available."
And yet there are currently nine counties without a domestic violence refuge.
In 2020, Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman suggested that we have a shortfall of between 45 emergency refuge accommodation spaces and 350 spaces depending on whether the need is calculated based on one family place per 10,000 women or one family place per 10,000 of the population.
Marie Mullholland, coordinator of West Cork Women Against Violence (WCWA), highlighted the fact that a Tusla review of refuge accommodation, which had been expected by the end of last year, has yet to be published.
Last year, the WCWA received a €400,000 private philanthropic donation through the Community Foundation of Ireland which has allowed them to buy a safe house.
"We have one safe house. But even with that, and even before that, what we do in places like West Cork is you're looking at B&Bs, you're looking at hotel rooms and then you've got the added difficulty of a place like West Cork where our main trade is tourism. So once the tourist season starts, literally from Easter right through to the end of September, there are no inns with rooms, they are all taken."
Another area explored by the task force was the garda supports available to those who come forward. While the network of Divisional Protective Services Units (DPSUs) has expanded across the country, gardaí working in these units have not received the training required to handle these sensitive cases.
“As usual, we tend to bring an initiative in and then bring the training in somewhere (later) rather than the other way around," told the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors annual conference in November.
“It’s something we have to get right because the victims, they are particularly vulnerable. In my own division in Cavan-Monaghan, they haven’t got training. And they’re working hard," he told the conference.
Education has been cited in recent days as a critical area.
In 2018, then education minister Richard Bruton asked the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) to review the relationship and sexual education curriculum, which has been in place since 1990. It has been promised that an updated programme will be introduced from September of next year.
But Independent TD Catherine Connolly has called for the rollout of the Manuela Programme, which was a collaborative project between 16 national rape crisis centres in memory of Manuela Riedo, a 17-year-old Swiss student, who was raped and murdered in Galway in October 2007.
She said this comprehensive, evidence-informed education pilot programme that was targeted at transition year students should be rolled out on a national basis with Government funding.
The fact that one in three of our secondary schools still provides education along the lines of gender must also be looked at.
Abuse against women in all forms, whether domestic, sexual or coercive has to stop being something that is an accepted occupational hazard of life for 50% of the population.
This must not only be those who brutally murder a woman, it is the sliding scale of men who beat their partners behind closed doors, it’s the men who grab women in bars and think it’s a joke, it’s the men who objectify women by shouting at them in the street, it's the co-workers who get uncomfortably close in the office, it's the men who send unsolicited dick pics to women and share dirty jokes in 'the lads' WhatsApp group.
It has to become something so abhorrent in the minds of everyone that society shuns those who partake in it.
It requires policies across nearly every single Government department, which are supported by real funding and have real implementation dates marked beside them.
The weight of these days can feel unbearable, but as the heavy air begins to lift and our focus as a nation shifts, which it undoubtedly will, we cannot let the issue fade inside yet another unopened report.
Jan 20: John F Kennedy was inaugurated US president. Newspapers at this time still set aside the front page for advertising and so the Cork Examiner carried coverage of the event on page 9. While the main focus was on the official ceremony, one article looked at Mrs Kennedy: "The girl who has just become America's first lady - Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of the new President - once predicted she would become a circus queen who spurned grandeur to marry the man on the flying trapeze".
Jan 22: Ireland signed a treaty of accession to the European Economic Community along with nine other States meaning the "centuries-old dream of a united Europe" became a step closer. Taoiseach Patrick Hillary and 25 government officials travelled to Brussels to sign the deal.
1983
Jan 19: An investigation found that the previous Fianna Fáil administration was involved in tapping the phones of journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold. After a 16-hour Cabinet meeting to discuss the report, the Government released a statement confirming that a bugging device borrowed from a garda source was used to record political conversations.
Jan 18: An opinion poll saw Enda Kenny surpass Bertie Ahern in the popularity ratings for the first time as it was reported that Fine Gael's "winter offensive" over the then Taoiseach's finances had done damage. Overall, the poll put Fianna Fáil on 34%, Fine Gael on 31%, Labour on 12% with Sinn Féin trailing behind on 8%. The Green Party was on 8% and the now defunct PDs had just 3% support.
2022 is expected to be yet another year where the focus is on the housing crisis. With this in mind, the Housing Committee will look at urban regeneration at its first meeting of year.
Up before the committee to discuss this issue are representatives from Cork Cycling Campaign as well as Technological University Dublin (TUD).
Officials from a number of departments are due to appear before the Committee on Environment and Climate Action to go through carbon budgets.
Cabinet is to meet on Wednesday morning, with ministers likely to discuss measures to combat gender-based violence, including current bail laws.
The Dáil resumes after the Christmas recess and there will be statements led by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Justice Minister Helen McEntee on the killing of Aishling Murphy.
Later in the evening, a Sinn Féin motion on gender-based violence will be debated.
Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman is also due to bring forward a Bill which would give adopted people access to their birth certs and other personal information.
However, the Birth Information and Tracing Bill faced some criticism after it was recently launched and it is expected that members of the opposition will move to table a number of amendments.
Over at the Finance Committee, Minister Paschal Donohoe will discuss Covid-19 related payments and the sale of AIB shares.
Both Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath and Arts Minister Catherine Martin will face questioning in the Dáil from 9am.
Representatives from RTÉ are to come before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from 9.30am.
The Seanad is also back this week and will discuss a Labour private members Bill on reproductive health related leave.
This Bill would provide a period of paid leave for those who experience miscarriage and would amend the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997.
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