Irish Examiner view: We need a specific law against stalking

UCC report and the establishment of an Oireachtas taskforce underline how pervasive stalking and harassment have become

The courage of Stalking Ireland co-founders Una Ring and Eve McDowell, and the hell they were put through, ought to prompt our legislature to enact a law to deal with stalkers. File picture: Dara Mac Donaill/The Irish Times

A good deal of media attention has been paid in recent days to a landmark UCC report on stalking, and rightly so.

More than 1,000 people responded to a survey run by the report authors, Catherine O’Sullivan and Ciara Staunton. It found that most of the perpetrators who were identified were known by the victims, who reported being threatened, physically attacked, and sexually assaulted.

The role of social media was also highlighted, with inappropriate texts, WhatsApps, or emails the most common forms of malicious communications identified by respondents, followed by targetting on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Anyone doubting the seriousness of this problem, and the need for specific legislation to address it, need only read some of the testimony from the victims themselves. One victim had to move house 18 times since meeting their stalker.

“He kept moving close to me,” they said. “I cannot even quantify the financial, social, professional impact on me. He also tried to take my lives and pastimes from me, I have literally changed my personality to try and stay safe from him.”

Stalking is to become a offence as proposed by the Government in the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022, and the report is intended to inform that legislation.

Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl has also written to political party leaders to tell them a taskforce to confront the abuse and harassment being experienced by female members of the House will be established very soon.

This taskforce and the UCC stalking report underlines how pervasive this problem has become.

Many people have sacrificed their privacy in a world that is far more connected than it was even 30 years ago, and those connections have the potential to turn toxic, in the form of stalking and harassment. The sooner the Government enacts this legislation the better.