THERE will be no refuge for many victims of domestic violence who will flee their homes with their children over Christmas.

THE fact that some rape victims can endure a harrowing 11-hour delay before undergoing forensic examination is a damning comment on the inadequacy of our response to their plight, in a community where sex crimes have been swept under the carpet for decades.

THE DPP should be made accountable and give reasons for decisions not to pursue rape cases, leading academics and rape help groups have urged.

PROPOSALS that Minister for Justice Michael McDowell will bring to the Cabinet tomorrow on how best to formally inquire into allegations of clerical child sex abuse would appear to be going generally in the right direction.

A REPORT from Britain will influence if nurses here are trained to carry out forensic examinations on sexual assault victims.

THE country’s struggling network of sexual assault units will collapse without extra funding, rape crisis centres have warned.

THE growing level of violence accompanying the heinous crime of rape is extremely disturbing.

ONLY 1% to 2% of reported rape cases in Ireland result in a conviction, figures show. Ireland has the lowest conviction rate of 21 European countries surveyed.

Cormac O’Keeffe

THE appalling crime of rape is revealed in all its horror by an exhibition of posters which opened in Dublin yesterday with the aim of heightening public awareness of this most heinous of offences.

AT least one victim of drug-assisted rape or sexual abuse contacts the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) every week.

RAPISTS in Galway have a greater chance of getting away with the crime because victims have to travel 300 miles to be forensically examined, it was claimed yesterday.

RAPE Crisis groups last night criticised proposals by Justice Minister Michael McDowell to allow rape cases be heard in local courts.

RAPE — no matter if the victim is male or female — is a most heinous crime.

Niamh Nolan

SOME rape victims have to wait up to 11 hours to be examined because of a shortage of doctors trained to gather forensic evidence.

THE Rape Crisis Network of Ireland is hopeful of securing additional funding for services dealing with sexual violence following a meeting with Finance Minister Brian Cowen in Dublin yesterday.

A VERY special exhibition that bombards the viewer with colour before revealing the bleakness and pain underneath is on show in the Axis Arts centre in Ballymun, Dublin.

THE former prison governor who indecently assaulted a young girl 28 times showed no remorse, his victim claimed yesterday.

GARDAÍ and police in the North have vowed to work with customs on either side of the Border in a concerted clampdown on smuggling and organised crime, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy has said.