Irish Examiner view: Protections must be used vigorously

Jennie's Law will come into being after a highly visible and vocal campaign by a number of people

The legal protections to be enshrined in law will be bittersweet for the family of Jennifer Poole, who was murdered by her former partner, Gavin Murphy, in 2021. Murphy had previous form with regard to domestic violence. File picture: Collins Courts

We have long voiced in these columns our belief that a domestic violence register is needed to provide a bulwark of safeguards to protect people vulnerable to crimes as horrendous as murder, rape, sexual assault, threats to kill, harassment, false imprisonment, and coercive control.

While the legislation necessary to enforce controls against individuals convicted of such barbaric behaviour will come before the Dáil shortly, sadly its appearance on the statute books will have come too late for many individuals.

The legal protections to be enshrined in law will be bittersweet for the family of Jennifer Poole, who was murdered by her former partner, Gavin Murphy, in 2021. Murphy had previous form with regard to domestic violence.

Called “Jennie’s Law” in memory of Ms Poole, it will come into being after a highly visible and vocal campaign by a number of people, not least Jennifer’s brother, Jason. He has pledged vigilance over its implementation to ensure it is used effectively.

Provisions within the legislation will aim to enable safeguards against those who have perpetrated crimes against wives and/or partners. It will be managed by the Courts Service and require the consent of victims before any convicted abuser can be named on the register.

It is an undoubted and welcome step forward in the battle against domestic violence and trial judges will have discretionary empowerment to public judgements in appropriate cases, containing details of conviction and sentence, as well as any other details deemed appropriate by the bench.

The biggest drive now for victims and their relatives is to ensure that the judiciary uses the new laws vigorously and effectively. Jason Poole, for one, says he is intent on ensuring it does.

While expressing frustration that his sister had to die before the authorities took action, his assertion that that infuriation has to be parked to ensure other families don’t have to go through the agony his suffered, was welcome.

One hurdle that has to be overcome is the “in camera” rule in the family law arena, whereby evidence garnered there cannot be used in criminal courts and therefore the onus will fall on victims to protect themselves.

The judiciary has been given an opportunity by the legislators to stem the tide of domestic violence and it has to ensure the laws are applied effectively and wisely to protect both female and male victims.

SpaceX no cause for celebration

While Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on the back of last week’s SpaceX IPO, it is not a landmark that should be celebrated in any shape or form.

While this was an undoubted historic event, raising some $75bn and valuing the company at over $2trn, it also highlighted the growing chasm between those who have under their personal control a majority of global wealth and those who have little or nothing.

Musk’s milestone highlights the growing economic disparity in our world and could actually spark a profound effect on societies everywhere.

In an America already roiled by social, cultural, and economic inequalities — your typical American would currently have to work for 11m years to attain Musk’s level of wealth — there are already growing calls for legislation to effectively tax extreme wealth.

Governor of California and potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate Gavin Newsom put it succinctly when he asserted that “when the federal government is for sale, the rich get richer and everyone else gets shafted”.

There is also widespread anger that the man who headed up Donald Trump’s department of government efficiency and cut funding for research into child cancers, among many other things, is now himself a trillionaire.

Musk’s fortune has grown staggeringly in the past decade. In 2016 he was estimated to be worth some $14bn. By 2021 that was $189bn, allowing him surpass Jeff Bezos as the world’s wealthiest man. His fortune is now about six times higher than that astonishing total.

At a time when many Americans are facing an affordability crisis — with most others across the globe in a similarly glum situation — it appears that the billionaire classes there are willing bend any and every rule to their own advantage.

With SpaceX having been successfully launched onto the stock market, we now await AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI to follow. Both have already filed the necessary papers for their own IPOs. It is expected both will be valued in the region of $1tn.

That individuals will boost their personal wealth substantially as a result means there is now little reasonable argument against taxing them appropriately.

Idiocracy realised

Some time ago the Washington Post, itself now no longer a bastion for protecting democracy, lamented the “sickening moral slum” of Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.

Whatever about the man’s domestic and international policies, his war-mongering, his personal enrichment, his ingrained racism, and his obvious misogyny, Trump’s hosting last night of an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on the south lawn of the White House was a new low for the credibility of the office he holds.

Described by some as “cockfighting for humans” to many people, the UFC represents a nadir in sporting endeavour, while to others it is credible, if violent, enterprise.

Intended to celebrate his own 80th birthday, as well as America’s 250th anniversary, the event has sparked comparisons with Idiocracy, author Mike Judge’s satire of an American future where politics, entertainment, and corporate branding become indistinguishable.

In reality, it is a crass and vile example of what America has become during Trump’s inglorious reign, but the sad reality is that the absence of dissenting voices in Washington is deafening and it seems there are all to few expressing the grim reality of a president refashioning a country in his own, loathsome, image.

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