Irish Examiner view: Stalking laws are not fit for purpose

Minister must listen to victims' call for more effective legislation

Victims of stalking want provisions in law similar to what is already in place in Scotland, England and Wales for over a decade.

Ireland is a sparsely populated country though our new enthusiasm for home working may turn that tide slightly and, hopefully, reinvigorate struggling rural communities. Because of that, many of us have an idea of personal space that might not survive in one of today's conurbations. Some of us imagine that our personal space is related to the size of County Cork — 1.853m acres — rather than petite Louth, a county of 204,100 acres. 

Yet, even the idea of modest personal space collapses when, as it occasionally does, footage of one of the world's busiest city pedestrian crossings, Tokyo's Shibuya, is broadcast. Though only a tiny proportion of Tokyo's 10m residents use it each day it shows, at least for someone more used to the windy stretches of, say, the Dingle peninsula, the Galtees or even the Lee Fields, an unsettling density of cheek-by-jowl humanity. Yet, as we report today, the vulnerability of being alone, especially for women, can be far more unnerving than even a sardine-tin journey in, again, Tokyo where Japan Metro, the world's busiest subway, carries an astonishing 3.16bn passengers each year.