Irish Examiner view: Speak up to save victims of domestic violence from tyrants

SAFE Ireland said 3,450 women and 589 children contacted a domestic violence service for the first time, between March and August this year.

Domestic abuse has had a long, unsettling history in this society. Picture: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The announcement yesterday afternoon from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen that Brexit divorce negotiations will continue after last night's deadline had passed was hardly unexpected. 

The consequences of failure, for all of those involved, are so profound, so sweeping that every last opportunity to reach a viable settlement must be utilised. 

Even at this very difficult moment, the announcement suggests that hope, no matter how limited, springs eternal.

Whether those trapped in a violent relationship might be so optimistic or could see how hope might play a part in rescuing their lives is questionable. 

Our world faces many, darkening issues but for someone caught in a cycle of physical, emotional, or economic domestic violence their world is inevitably limited. Horizons are immediate, choices are few.

When a partner regularly uses intimidation to undermine and humiliate it is more than difficult to find time or energy to try to avert climate change. 

When a partner regularly uses intimidation to control the minutiae of life, down to the colour of socks a person might wear, it is impossible to realise potential or long-held ambitions. Anything beyond survival can seem a flight of fancy.

Domestic abuse has had a long, unsettling history in this society. The violent patriarch is, or at least was, a staple figure in our literature.  Brooding bullies, as often as not unhinged by alcohol abuse, wreaked their particular brand of havoc. 

It is not necessary to be a psychologist to recognise that domestic violence of one kind or another can leave a negative and debilitating transgenerational legacy.  The pain and anguish are almost self-perpetuating.

The limits made necessary by the pandemic have brought this dysfunction into a sharper perspective. Garda figures show that more than 100 people have been prosecuted for domestic violence offences since the end of October.

Under Operation Faoiseamh, the necessary and welcome garda response to domestic issues raised by the pandemic, 217 people have been prosecuted. 

Those figures are reflected in data from Women’s Aid who have recorded a 43% increase in calls from women in abusive situations compared with the same period last year. 

SAFE Ireland, the national domestic abuse agency, figures confirm that trend. The agency said 3,450 women and 589 children contacted a domestic violence service for the first time, between March and August this year. 

Men's Network Ireland, a service for male victims of domestic abuse, hit a record in May when it was contacted by 185 men who felt they were in jeopardy.

These are grim figures but they probably are a huge improvement on the situation even a few decades ago when, all too often, society turned a blind eye to the worst kind of tyranny. 

That, however, is no consolation to those who make up the figures above. Those figures show that we have a lot to do still, that we may need to be far more assertive in confronting this toxic behaviour. 

That will require a cultural change that would isolate abusive partners in a way that forces a change in behaviour. We should not be shy either about imposing jail sanctions if the abuse continues despite official interventions.