Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan hopes that at the end of his tenure he is viewed in the same light as his predecessor, Helen McEntee, in terms of how well he tackled sexual and gender based violence.
The comments were made as the Minister spoke at an event of Cuan, the state agency under the remit of the Department of Justice which is “dedicated to tackling and reducing domestic, sexual and gender-based violence”.
Addressing the event in Dublin, O’Callaghan said that he understood if some people concerned about gender-based violence had a “legitimate suspicion” about a new Justice Minister and his capacity to deal with the issue compared to his predecessor, Helen McEntee.
He said that McEntee had “done so much work in the area” of sexual violence and that she was a “very modernising and reforming Minister for Justice.”
“[I know] there may be some concern—’Oh God, who’s this guy who’s coming in?’” O’Callaghan said, assuring the audience: “I want you to know that I’m fully committed to it. I regard it as a priority for myself.”
He added that he ultimately wanted his legacy as a Minister to be similar to McEntee’s in terms of how he handled the issue of gender-based violence.
“I want to be seen in as good a light at the end of this, in terms of this issue, as Helen was at the end of her issue,” he said.
Notably, as Justice Minister, McEntee oversaw the establishment of Cuan, and enacted legislative reforms including the introduction of standalone offences for stalking and non-fatal strangulation, along with other measures. McEntee repeatedly affirmed that tackling domestic, sexual and gender based violence was her top priority as Minister.
Despite this assertion, the number of sexual offences actually rose under her tenure. In 2019, the year before McEntee took office, the number of sexual offences recorded in Ireland according to the CSO were 3,360.
This briefly dipped to 3,082 in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 lockdown. However, it subsequently surged to 3,530 in 2021, and then to 3,800 in 2022.
As of 2023 – the most recent figures available – the number of recorded sex offences stood at 3,407, which is still higher than the 3,360 seen the year before McEntee took office.
O’Callaghan also said during the same event that he was waiting to receive sentencing guidelines from the judiciary regarding sentencing for certain “controversial” offences, including the ongoing perceived lenient sentencing of child abuse imagery cases, wherein individuals caught with child pornography receive fully suspended sentences.