CHILLING STATISTICS ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Comment

The feeling that we have finally woken up to the prevalence and seriousness of domestic violence, and all forms of violence directed towards people on the basis of their sexuality or gender identification, seems to be a very pronounced one in Irish society at the current time. In the aftermath of the murder of schoolteacher Aisling Murphy while she was out exercising in Tullamore, Co Offaly in January this year, there was a nationwide outpouring of grief and outrage that brought with it an “enough is enough” affirmation comparable to the Black Lives Matter movement that existed prior to the murder of African-American man George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 but took on global force and influence in the wake of that act.

There was a communal admission that violence against women, whether in the home or outside it, and in its manifold forms of physical, sexual, financial, and emotional and psychological abuse, needed to be confronted and addressed, and needed to be talked about. We needed to ask ourselves serious questions about its frequency and persistence, we needed to look at the law that dealt with its perpetrators and at the supports offered to its victims and proof-test them for utility and effectiveness. Those Ministers of Government with responsibility in the area were commendably expedient in announcing reviews and overhauls of the relevant legislation, in particular the need to ensure that the law addressed behaviours such as stalking. And funding and supports were replenished in a number of relevant sectors, with some encouraging progress made to start to address the scandalous absence of refuge services within easy reach of domestic abuse victims in our own county.

We had the sense that we were finally doing something about a problem that had lurked in the shadows for far too long. But statistics that were circulated this week strongly suggest that what has been done recently to address the problem of violence against women and children in the family home and outside of it could barely be called a start.

The statistics are not that new, and will come as no surprise to those who advocate and work for victims in this area. But, considered together, they are chilling. 13,438 people contacted the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s helpline in 2020. 24,686 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to An Garda Síochána over a nine-month period last year. 3,214 sexual offences were recorded in the year to Quarter 2 of 2021. 22,970 applications were made to the District Court under domestic violence legislation in 2020. 8,887 applications for safety orders were made to the courts last year – 2,467 were granted. 4,000 criminal charges were created in 2020 for breaches of Domestic Violence Act Orders. 5,948 incidents of child abuse were disclosed to Women’s Aid in 2020.

No one in this country can be comfortable with these statistics. No one should fool themselves that we are finally doing enough. We commend Cavan/Monaghan Government Minister Heather Humphreys for her call this week on local communities to work with the Gardaí and the stakeholders in this area to bring about the changes needed to impact on these shocking figures. Minister Humphreys’ words are not the empty clarion cry of a populist politician – they are a very serious challenge to people at local, household level to do something about this problem. The figures for domestic and other forms of violence against women, children and other vulnerable people will only start to fall when the people responsible for these crimes are called out and reported; when behaviours, attitudes and language still too often ignored or tolerated in homes, workplaces and social settings are challenged and repudiated; when the ways in which women are blatantly or subtly objectified in the music, movies, media and advertising that influence the thinking and actions of young people are upbraided, and boycotted.

“I believe that we can make 2022 a landmark year in the battle against all forms of domestic, sexual and genderbased violence,” Minister Humphreys stated. An admirable objective, but what a body of work we all have to do to make it happen.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Most people would agree that, where domestic violence is concerned, there is sense and weight in looking at what is a multi-layered and complex problem through the prism of human rights. It is inarguable, surely, that we all have the right not to be subjected to violence because we are of a particular gender or sexuality or experiencing moments in our lives when we are vulnerable, isolated and frightened. But do we have a right when we are sick to a hospital bed, or to an ambulance when we are suddenly and seriously sick? In theory, yes – in practice, as unfortunate people whose agonising wait for an ambulance to arrive to give them urgently needed medical treatment in Monaghan Town in recent weeks, and whose cases were highlighted at a meeting of the Monaghan Municipal District we report on this week, not necessarily.

The way in which ambulance services in this country are operated, particularly at weekends, means that you might be lucky and you might not be should you require them. This is not the fault of the people who drive the ambulances or the trained medical personnel who work in them. It is apparently the fault of the system, a system which has to operate at periods when always constrained resources are particularly scarce and unable to cope with what is by the very nature of emergency medicine a level of demand that is impossible to accurately predict. This is obviously a broken system, but no one seems to be in any hurry to fix it. Our hospital system is broken too despite the billions which are being annually spent on it. Again, no one seems to be trying to fix it.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is just the latest of a long line of occupants of what is surely the least desirable portfolio of Government to have to carry the can for the failings of a system that has placed itself beyond the meaningful influence of our democratic structures. In a very real sense, Deputy Donnelly is the only Minister Without Portfolio in the Government. If he’s asked a question about hospital services, and presumably ambulance services too, he has to send it off to somebody else to get a reply. Somebody soon has to set about fixing this broken system. Because you shouldn’t lose your human rights just because you get sick.