Brian Stanley: Domestic violence epidemic and refuge crisis

We're going through an epidemic at the moment of domestic abuse and particularly domestic violence. In 2025, the Gardaí had over 67,000 calls in relation to domestic abuse. There were seven women murdered last year and in a lot of those cases and in a lot of the cases where women are murdered, it's by a family member or a partner or somebody known closely to the victim. This year in the first six months, matters have even got worse. Eight women have been murdered to date. Two of them were killed within a few short days of each other just over a week ago, Jamie Carney in Kerry and Adina Constantine in Portleach, literally in the same street as where my office is. The absence of a domestic abuse refuge in nine counties is a problem, including in County Leach. And they've been raising this, you'll recall me raising this a number of times here over the years. Leach Domestic Abuse Services have been raising the importance of this and having a safe place for victims to go, including with children, when they have to flee their family home is essential. Victims in Leach often have to leave the county to seek refuge and are away from all services and family supports. Now the council bought a site, and I'll just finish on this. They bought a site nearly three years ago to put an eight unit refuge on it. There was a lack of progress, but there is an AHB secured now to put that in place. I would just ask the Minister for Justice and the Government, and I'm co-inviting Deputy Stanley Thomas, to cast money for it and get the scheme up and running as quick as possible. I think you'll agree it's an important issue. I very much do. Thank you to Deputy Stanley for raising this issue. Domestic sexual gender-based violence is an epidemic in Irish society. And in fact there's certain people in certain positions of power and influence in certain parts of the world who are trying to make sure we talk about these issues less. You know there's been an effort sometimes to shut down debate on these issues, to use phrases like woke and the likes. Domestic sexual gender-based violence is something that needs the full attention and focus of all of us, all positions of influence. There's major issues in relation to the whole issue of young men, and also in terms of how young men are getting sex ed, in terms of how young men are being introduced to people who put themselves forward as role models who are despicable, vile, disgusting individuals. Some are prominently known, some less prominently known, all having a corrosive effect in our society. And we have a huge amount of work to do, and men can't recuse themselves from this conversation, and men need to show leadership in relation to this conversation too. And in relation to the issue of the rollout of refuges, you're entirely right. Cuann, our statutory agency, has been set up, and the Minister for Justice is working closely with them, and I'll specifically ask him to come back and see what can be done on the project you're referencing in Leash, and to see if we can take that forward.