Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that Ireland is facing an “epidemic of violence against violence women,” calling the matter a “major priority” for the government.
Speaking in the Dáil this week, the Taoiseach referred to the issue of “gender-based violence, violence against women and femicide, in particular.”
“As I have said previously, I believe we face an epidemic of violence women, not just in Ireland, but across the world,” he said, going on to claim that murders of women by men in Ireland now significantly surpasses the number of gangland killings.
“There have been approximately 20 murders since the killing of Ashling Murphy,” he said.
“By comparison, this year so far, thankfully, we have only had one murder related to so-called gangland violence related to organised crime. One is one too many, but when it comes to the murder of women by men, the figure is closer to 20.”
The Taoiseach added: “In some ways, that puts in perspective how serious this issue is and how we need to be serious, as a country and a government, in combating domestic and gender-based violence, and that is what we are doing.”
Calling the matter a “major priority” for his government, he said that he didn’t believe “any Minister before the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has prioritised this in the way that she has.”
“There are tougher sentences, new offences, including very specific ones, for example, relating to strangulation, dedicated trained gardaí, special victims units in every region, new women’s refuges and safe houses being established all over the country, changes to the law around consent in particular, and public information campaigns on all of those issues, including on image-sharing and so on,” he said.
“A huge amount of work is being done by the government, led by the Minister for Justice, on this really important issue.”
Last year Ireland saw a significant increase in serious crimes such as murder and rape, seeing a 16% increase in the number of murders on the pre-pandemic year of 2019. Sexual offences overall saw increased 8% on 2019, with reports of rape up 13 % on 2019.
Human trafficking cases were up 110% on 2019.