'A golden opportunity' - New strategy to combat domestic violence launched by Irish govt

A new national strategy to combat domestic, sexual and gender-based violence has been published by the Irish government. 

Released today (Wednesday June 29), it's the third strategy developed in close collaboration with the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) and Safe Ireland. 

A whole-of-government strategy, it has a particular focus on prevention and aims to ensure the criminal justice system and other services better support victims. 

According to the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, the education sector has a major role in the implementation and development of the strategy. 

Social, personal and health education (SPHE) and relationships and sexuality education (RSE) will be updated to reflect the strategy. 

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Changes in the sector aimed at developing and implementing the strategy include promoting school environments free of gender-based violence, and teacher training aimed at providing confidence and competence in the areas of SPHE and RSE. 

The minister said, "Schools and teachers are already doing so much good work in this area and implementing the Third National Strategy will give renewed impetus to this good work.

"My Department is committed to ensuring that Relationships and Sexuality Education is delivered to children and young people across the continuum of the schools system, in an age appropriate manner and we continue to review and expand our work in this area. 

"We now have a golden opportunity to address these challenging societal issues during children’s formative years and we know the very positive influence teachers and schools can play in this.” 

The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman, also commented on the launch of the new strategy. 

Minister O'Gorman said, "The strategy, launched today, is the most ambitious plan to date to tackle gender-based violence in Ireland. It contains four distinct pillars - one of which is prevention - aimed at challenging the existing culture of domestic abuse and violence against women in our society.

“We know that there is a causal link between the objectification of women, including harmful sexist and misogynistic comments, and the perpetration of violence against women.

"Challenging these attitudes early requires a whole-of-Government and a whole-of-societal response. The strategy launched today contains actions across multiple government departments, State organisations and sectors which will help us to tackle existing attitudes and reach a culture of zero-tolerance.”