Tag Archives: domestic violence

CLARE Haven Services is projecting that, by year-end, 70 to 80 women will have availed of its refuge, based on current trends. Johnny O’Rourke, services manager of the Ennis-based organisation, made the prediction, following the release of a report this week, which revealed there were 19,385 disclosures of abuse against women and children made to Women’s Aid in 2017. “Clare Haven has been pretty much at capacity for the first quarter of this year,” he explained. In the first 10 weeks of the year, the women’s refuge has had 19 admissions. “It is quite a lot when you are working through various issues; if you put that out towards the end of the year, we are looking at 70 or 80 women [some also with young children] in the refuge in 12 months and that is local women, so the demand is there and we need to get better at responding to it,” he added. While he cannot say exactly …

ANIMALS enjoy more protection under the law than adult victims of domestic violence in Ireland, a prominent Clare politician has claimed. Senator Tony Mulcahy, who previously revealed his own childhood had been destroyed by domestic violence, has called on Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to introduce more stringent penalties against perpetrators of this crime. The Fine Gael Senator made the plea noting that someone who inflicts cruelty on a dog can be fined up to €250,000, or face up to five years imprisonment, while there is far less protection for someone over the age of 18, either male or female, who is a victim of domestic violence. A person convicted in the district court of causing harm can receive a maximum fine of €1,500 or up to 12 months in prison. “If we can introduce law to protect animals, we should be able to protect a man or woman that is being brutalised in their own home,” he said. “Friends of …

CLARE Senator Martin Conway is calling for the criminalisation of domestic violence. Senator Conway, who is a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, was speaking following the launch of the committee’s report on domestic and sexual violence. “The committee heard that violence, in a domestic context, is often treated differently to public assault, where public assault is treated more seriously. This is completely unacceptable and the State needs to ensure that, to the greatest possible extent, this crime should be treated as being as serious, if not more serious than, many other forms of criminal and common law assault,” he said. The committee’s report calls for a wider definition of domestic violence and seeks to have domestic abuse introduced into Irish law. The proposal envisages the use of specially trained and experienced judges in a ‘one family, one judge’ model, which would be complemented by the provision of specially trained support services aimed at assisting the …

Fine Gael Senator Tony Mulcahy has said, from what he can remember, his father was “ a thug and a bully”. He made the comment in a  contribution to a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, which was discussing submissions on domestic and sexual violence. During the speech on Wednesday night, at the end of which he received a round of applause, the Shannon-based senator said he was not sure how his family would react to his sharing these personal details but said he thought nothing had changed in Ireland since then with regards to this issue. As regards gardaí being called out to investigate an alleged domestic incident, he remarked, “What’s perpetrated at the time is an absolute assault, right, and it is a criminal act, and we need to treat it as a criminal act,” he said. More power should be given to gardaí, as first responders to these incidents, Senator Mulcahy suggested, adding that community …