Jennie's law puts onus on abused to act
David Poole holds a framed photo of his murdered sister, Jennifer, after Gavin Murphy received a life sentence for her murder in April 2021. Jennie’s Law is a major triumph for the family of Jennifer Poole and the campaigners who fought tirelessly to ensure her death would not be in vain. File photo: Collins Courts
When I was asked to write a response to Jennie’s Law, I took time to think.
As a survivor leading Survivors Informing Service and Institutions (SiSi), an organisation focused on survivors’ experiences of intimate partner violence, I know gut instinct can be a life-saving defence. Yet that same instinct — to report abuse or seek justice — can be turned against survivors when abusers weaponise the law to continue control post-separation.
Jennie’s Law is a major triumph for the family of Jennifer Poole and the campaigners who fought tirelessly to ensure her death would not be in vain. It is fitting that Jason Poole’s sister Jennie be remembered through such groundbreaking legislation.
The law will create a register of those convicted of domestic violence offences. Managed by the courts with judicial discretion, victims must consent before a perpetrator’s name is added. The list will be public, and names will remain for three years after conviction, with the possibility of removal upon request.
It is striking that Ireland will make this register public, given the secrecy surrounding our family law system. Litigants are forbidden to speak about ongoing proceedings for fear of breaching the in-camera rule.
By contrast, Clare’s Law in the UK leaves disclosure decisions to multi-agency risk conferences (MARACs), recognising that collective judgment can better offer safety and privacy.
Recently, the UK has also moved to remove the presumption of parental contact in custody cases involving domestic and sexual violence — a vital step in protecting adult and child victims from continued harm.
The presumption of parental contact is enshrined in our Constitution and reinforced by court-appointed experts who minimise or dismiss domestic violence to prioritise contact.
For too long, domestic violence in Ireland was seen as a private matter. Today, it spills into our communities, and violence within the home can no longer be treated as the “lesser evil.” Trust — and its betrayal — underpin intimate partner violence.
Under current sentencing, that breach is now an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one. The Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, aptly titled Zero Tolerance, calls for the same from every community. Dublin One has declared “Zero Tolerance” locally, vowing to call out violence against women as a means to reduce systemic inequality.
In the first eight months of 2025 alone, gardaí received over 42,000 domestic abuse-related contacts. Most prosecutions for the relatively new offence of non-fatal strangulation have been domestic abuse cases.
Many women who survive strangulation believed they would die. Sometimes all it takes is a few seconds of pressure, a whispered “I could kill you right now”, and a lifetime of fear begins.
Professor Jane Monckton Smith, a leading specialist in domestic abuse and homicide prevention, describes coercive control as an umbrella term for myriad abuses, following a three-phase cycle of control, challenge, and consequence.
The women I work with live this cycle daily.
When perpetrators perceive a challenge to their control, it triggers retaliation.
I often hear from women who hide the facts of abuse from their children. Under Jennie’s Law, a father could be named on the public record — but only if the mother consents.
Yet coercive control continues long after sentencing.
Three years on a register leaves another 15 to manage when parenting with a perpetrator. Many victims will not report until their children are safe, internalised misogyny in family courts routinely leads to men convicted of domestic violence having access to children.
Having founded SiSi, and accompanied countless women from refuge and on through legal systems, I’ve seen how one man can harm many lives — and how one woman can become a target for multiple abusive men. Justice, when it comes, is slow. Prosecutions can take many years during which family court hearings continue.
Domestic violence legislation introduced in 2018 provided courts with a suite of remedies, but these only work when patterns of abuse are visible. Silencing children or dismissing mothers’ testimony perpetuates harm.
Leaving it to victims to decide whether perpetrators are publicly named, while contact continues, would be a failure of the State’s duty to protect. Current data on protective orders does not reflect the true scale of abuse reported to gardaí.
Labels like “high conflict” or “toxic relationship” let courts simplistically seek middle ground, granting protective orders to both parties — the first convicted of breach, determining who is listed the offender.
Jennie’s Law, combined with the removal of the presumption of contact and a confidential database of known perpetrators accessible to safeguarding networks, could be a powerful tool. But it must be applied with gender sensitivity to avoid victims being misidentified as offenders when challenging coercive control.
To end impunity, Ireland must go further: remove the presumption of contact in cases of domestic and sexual violence and loosen restrictions to allow trained journalists report more openly on family law cases — still protecting identities, but exposing systems that fail survivors."
Only then will Jennie’s Law truly honour its namesake — by ensuring that no one else’s sister, daughter, or friend becomes another victim of silence.
- Mary-Louise Lynch is founding director of SiSi, Survivors Informing Service and Institutions.
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