Ruth Coppinger: Jennie's Law must stigmatise domestic violence
Ruth Coppinger welcomes the introduction of Jennie's Law and calls for it to carry the social stigma needed to confront domestic violence. She cites new Women's Aid figures showing a 33% rise in disclosures in 2025 and warns that legal change must be matched by systemic responses.
Ruth Coppinger commends Jason, Jennie's brother, for his campaign for Jennie's Law and stresses the need for society to stop normalising domestic abuse. She argues the law should help create a stigma around domestic violence that has been lacking for years.
Coppinger highlights the Women's Aid report: 62,275 disclosures in 2025, a 33% increase, with 85% abused by a current or former partner and a third abused by a former partner. She cites specific harms disclosed to frontline services, including 1,522 incidents during pregnancy and 1,321 threats to kill women and children.
She warns that post-separation abuse, failings in the family justice system and the housing crisis are forcing women to choose between violence or homelessness. Coppinger calls on the Minister to address family law, housing and supports for survivors.
Coppinger condemns racially charged victim blaming after recent murders, including the death in Ballymena and two femicides the prior week, and details online harassment she has received from another TD. She says this indicates a dangerous shift where gender based violence is being reframed as a race issue instead of being confronted as violence against women.
Overview
Ruth Coppinger commends Jason, Jennie's brother, for his campaign for Jennie's Law and stresses the need for society to stop normalising domestic abuse. She argues the law should help create a stigma around domestic violence that has been lacking for years.
Statistics and scale
Coppinger highlights the Women's Aid report: 62,275 disclosures in 2025, a 33% increase, with 85% abused by a current or former partner and a third abused by a former partner. She cites specific harms disclosed to frontline services, including 1,522 incidents during pregnancy and 1,321 threats to kill women and children.
Systemic challenges
She warns that post-separation abuse, failings in the family justice system and the housing crisis are forcing women to choose between violence or homelessness. Coppinger calls on the Minister to address family law, housing and supports for survivors.
Racism, online abuse and consequences
Coppinger condemns racially charged victim blaming after recent murders, including the death in Ballymena and two femicides the prior week, and details online harassment she has received from another TD. She says this indicates a dangerous shift where gender based violence is being reframed as a race issue instead of being confronted as violence against women.
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Transcript
Yeah, so I obviously welcome the introduction of what has been called Jenny's Law and I want to commend Jason, her brother, for all of the campaigning that he has done over a number of years to bring this about. My hope is that it would at least hopefully bring a stigma to what's called domestic violence because there hasn't really been the kind of stigma that there should have been over the years. I want to just put this in context too because Women's Aid released their report recently and it shows a 33% increase in violence in the home against women in 2025. 33% in disclosures. We obviously don't know if it's an increase at the same level of violence but I reckon it's a bit of both. More awareness, more non-acceptance and less tolerance as well. Now Women's Aid frontline services heard 62,275 disclosures as I said an overall increase of a third. 85% of these women were abused by a current or former partner and in fact a third of them were abused by a former partner showing you know the old cliche of why doesn't she leave is not the solution because the relationship ending does not mean the abuse is ending. There are serious challenges also that the Minister has to address within the family justice system, post-separation abuse and the housing crisis of course which is trapping women and forcing them to choose between violence or homelessness. We've all had so many contacts on that issue and what kind of abuse are we talking about? Like just trigger warning for anybody listening but 1,522 disclosures of abuse during pregnancy or just after a baby being born. 1,321 threats to kill women and children and family members or to self-harm and I think we have to recognize that on this island today there has been another murder of a woman and a child within the family in Ballymena and we had two femicides last week. There's been 670 disclosures of abuse that threatened to take children from their mothers as well. Rape, non-fatal strangulation against women, stalking online and offline, the list goes on and we have to say that every 10 minutes a woman or girl is killed by a family member or a partner in the world. It's just a relentless situation and in Ireland it is such a huge problem as we've said. Last week we had an unbelievable situation where two women were murdered and one of those women because she was killed by somebody who was of a different nationality and she was in a relationship with him potentially, obviously the suspect I mean, there's been no trial. She got a different treatment to others. She had comments put up on her own social media page condemning her, victim blaming her. Imagine her daughter, her family had to see that and that is because there are racists in this country who are congealing around the issue of gender based violence and trying to turn it into a race issue. People have no interest in violence against women at any other time except if it's carried out by someone who's not Irish. I have been subjected by a male TD in this house to online harassment over this and I think that's a form of gender based violence too against elected women and discussing social media pylons from male TDs who raise this issue as well. It's completely unacceptable and should be called out.