Rape crisis groups want specialist education for judges and barristers and greater protection for victims in court.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar has said the abortion bill will not lead to a surge in demand for terminations and that the proposed bill is more pro-life than current arrangements for abortions.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has said there may need to be a fresh abortion referendum to deal with women pregnant as a result of rape.

The country’s largest rape support group is reporting a rise in physical and other forms of violence accompanying rapes and sexual assaults.

The latest report on the incidence of rape, the most heinous of crimes against women, reflects a truly shocking picture of society where sexual violence, including gang rape, is now increasing alarmingly.

WITHIN our local park is a dog park — a large fenced off area where one can bring one’s dog to ‘run wild and free’ or, in other words, off the lead. It’s a good idea as it allows dogs to do their thing without compromising the safety or enjoyment of the main park for non-dog lovers. Dogs, after all, are.... well, dogs, and even though I am a dog lover and owner, I think that this is exactly how it should be.

The decision by murdered Jill Meagher’s husband, Thomas, to return to Australia “took a lot of courage”, his mother Joan said.

ON Nov 27 I got a very sad phonecall from Bernadette Fahy and a text from Paddy Doyle.Both Bernadette and Paddy are amazing people who are survivors of institutional abuse.

A date will be set this month for the sentencing of Dublin football star Diarmuid Connolly over an unprovoked attack in which a man suffered a fractured eye-socket.

Gardaí said medical tests along with CCTV footage and witness statements will show if there is evidence to substantiate claims by a college student that she was raped by a taxi driver.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN put it succinctly when he declared that “those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither”.

Children are no match for adults intent on harming them and they need to know that from an early age, a leading children’s charity has warned.

A convicted sex offender embraced by neighbours and friends — including a priest — prior to sentencing is due for release today.

All too often, parents in the past were lulled into a false sense of security that their children were occupied watching television, but it was largely controlled. Now children have the added distractions of video games or the internet, which is essentially unmonitored, because they can expose children to dangerous levels of explicit sex and violence.

The vast majority of the 37% of children who are sexually abusing other children are not classic paedophiles but abuse due to neglect, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, and increasingly because of exposure to porn or an over-sexualised homeplace.

Thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites by Leinster House officials and visitors underlines a wider problem with porn and attitudes to women in Irish society.

Free bereavement counselling must be offered to victims of crime who suffer traumatic events, support groups have said.

Society should be shouting from the rooftops and insisting more be done to stop the escalation of rape attacks, according to the head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre raises a critical question about attitudes to rape Ireland in her comment on the brutal murder of a 23-year-old Indian medical student, an appalling crime which has drawn worldwide condemnation. She asks: New Delhi and Dublin — how far apart are we?

ACTRESS Charlie Murphy says “I would love to reach a stage when I never worried where the next job is coming from, but I don’t know if that will ever happen”.