Letters to the Editor: Court is a lonely place for victims
A reader says the court system 'is a cold and lonely place for victims'. Picture: iStock
The legal system is a complicated one for ordinary people to follow.
Terms such as ‘file to DPP’, ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, and ‘balance of probabilities’ are not in common usage.
I assisted two victims earlier this year as they had to attend court. I was not very familiar myself but had some knowledge due to research I carried out. The case had been called a number of times and eventually a date was fixed against three defendants.
The case was in a circuit court at 10.30am and the witnesses/victims were present at 10am. No solicitor or barrister approached or spoke to the victims.
The judge dealt with other issues until, at 11.45am, the jury selection commenced. The victims were confused and I explained as best I could.
No court support was offered to the victims.
The gardaí were doing their best.
However, they were occupied with their own work.
The jury was selected and 12 people entered the courtroom. They were sworn in on a Bible and they sat in a box section.
The judge spoke to them and explained the procedure. A barrister for the DPP then outlined the evidence and their role. They were then sent for lunch until 2.20pm.
No one except a garda told the victims they could go to lunch. No barrister or solicitor or judge addressed the victims.
Two barristers and a solicitor spoke to the defendants and spent some time speaking to them.
After lunch, back in the court room, the barristers and solicitors again spoke to the defendants. No one except the garda approached the victims.
The judge returned and the two victims were called and told their versions.
On occasions they were quite nervous and shakily poured some water to drink which was available.
The judge never addressed them or advised them to have a drink or take their time.
The questioning by barristers was extreme and they had to relive the crime in words. The judge or DPP barrister did not assist the victims.
Afterwards, the victims said they felt they were on trial.
The gardaí gave evidence where the replies of the defendants were read out and then it was over to the defendants.
The jury was sent out during some legal debate. The case went into the next day.
The following morning, victims were present at 10.30am. No barrister or solicitor spoke to the victims while the defendants were being spoken to by their barrister and solicitors.
Only one defendant gave evidence and the jury were spoken to by barristers and they were sent to their room to decide.
Reasonable doubt by the jury allowed the defendants off, as it was three versus two.
The main issue is the treatment of victims. Victims who had never been in court feel lost and confused in the court system.
Assuming the DPP barristers and State solicitors are most likely following their guidance, they missed some important points by not speaking to the victims.
It is difficult to understand why the victims who were also witnesses were not addressed or spoken to by the state solicitor or barrister.
The court system is indeed a cold and lonely place for victims and it is not helped by the cold and distant attitude of the state solicitor, barrister, and judge.
While reading ’Rise In domestic violence reporting a positive development, says minister’ by Louise Burne ( , September 30), I couldn’t help but notice other headlines on the page — 'Housing refused despite report of sex abuse', and 'Abuse victims ‘denied homeless support’'— both articles by Ann Murphy.
Justice minister Jim O’Callaghan states that it should be seen as a positive step that more people are coming forward to report domestic violence, and is encouraging others to come forward.
This article informs us of the increase of 162% in domestic violence reports from 2016 to 2024, and a staggering 49,230 incidents being reported in 2024.
I feel that a large percentage of the population are aware that domestic violence is on the rise but this seems to be all that we and the Government are “aware” of.
It would appear from this page that we are merely collecting numbers and not acting on them.
I am struggling to consider how anyone can see these statistics as a positive step when one considers the points in the other articles.
I would be interested to know what exactly is being done with these statistics, especially considering how extremely difficult it must have been for these individuals to make the reports in the first place?
We wish to draw urgent attention to the devastating delays facing people with Parkinson’s disease in Ireland who are awaiting Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery.
Current waiting times of 16 months or longer are unacceptable and risk denying patients a vital, life-changing intervention.
In 2022–2023 alone, €2m was spent outsourcing DBS surgeries to the UK.
This imposes financial, physical, and emotional strain on patients and families, while diverting funds away from strengthening Irish healthcare services.
Each DBS assessment requires three to four full days from a multidisciplinary team. Regardless of whether patients travel from Donegal, Kerry, or elsewhere, they must come to Dublin for this intensive process.
When waiting times exceed six to eight months, assessments expire and must be repeated — doubling the workload for overstretched teams, wasting resources, and leaving patients to decline further during their window of eligibility.
Timing is critical.
DBS should be completed early in the disease course to ensure patients gain the maximum benefit and quality of life.
A 16-month wait means that Parkinson’s may have progressed to a stage where DBS is no longer a viable option. Early intervention is essential — delays risk leaving patients with irreversible decline.
There is a clear solution. As Catherine Moran, the country’s only neurosurgeon providing DBS, has outlined, funding an updated neurosurgical robot in Budget 2026 could double the number of surgeries performed per day, reduce theatre times, and deliver intervention at the right moment — before families are forced to watch their loved ones deteriorate beyond hope.
As a small charity run by volunteers living with early onset Parkinson’s, we have long advocated to keep DBS assessments in Ireland. Now, we find ourselves pleading to ensure that DBS surgeries — an essential, proven treatment — also remain accessible here at home.
We should not have to beg for this vital treatment to be available in Ireland.
The expertise exists. The patients are waiting. What is missing is action.
When I lived in the US, the school buses were all a uniform and very distinct bright yellow, which you would know well from all of various TV programmes.
But what is less obvious, is that these buses are have mandatory stop signs and, by law, cars may not pass them in either direction while their stop sign lights are flashing.
The drivers of these buses can then remain where the children disembark, stopping all traffic, until each child has safely crossed the road.
Many of the school buses also feature a barrier at the front which swings out when the stop lights are active, and this is to prevent children crossing too close to the bus, and out of view of the driver, and so prevents tragic accidents where the driver hits a child that they could not see.
It is such a simple system, and relatively inexpensive, and I would love to see something similar here in Ireland.
Modern automated public toilets could — with a little imagination — be readily adapted to be used as new types of cost-efficient night-time en-suite bedrooms.
If this were to happen, such automated self-cleaning en-suite bedrooms could potentially over several years become much better value than present costly hotel bedrooms.
This could especially be very welcome for people such as hard-pressed students who work, study, and travel a lot during most of their waking hours.
They commonly find that they can’t enjoy any reasonable leisure time at all in the fancy hotel rooms to which they too frequently unhappily return late at night when they often feel very tired.
They may find themselves, ironically, unable to stop themselves from falling asleep and becoming totally oblivious of their overdecorated surroundings which they have spent too much of their valuable time doing their best to obtain.
But, with just the inclusion of simple and practical furnishings and a good TV screen for internet access, college students could gain — from these specially adapted en-suite bedrooms — a chance to access cheaper, safer, and more efficient night-time accommodation which could also, I would predict, have the potential to be placed conveniently closer to their own college campuses than most hotel are sited.
These automated en-suite bedrooms may also actually form some notable parallels with the similar operations of our own living cells which, as they work in unison together, make up the many thriving parts of our wonderful human bodies?
