Letters to the Editor: Children who witness domestic violence should be seen and heard
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Domestic violence is also called domestic abuse. It includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. It happens in couple relationships or between family members. Domestic violence can happen against women and men. It can also happen against children.
According to the Courts Service’s recent annual report, applications for domestic violence protection orders have increased by 25% over the past five years.
Ostensibly there were 25,570 applications to the district court under domestic legislation in 2023.
This is an increase of almost 2,000 applications on the previous year and up from 20,501 in 2019.
As a clinician, I have found the vast preponderance of domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women and children.
We need to get real when it comes to this most vile and egregious conduct. Punitive sentencing has to be the penalty for any man who commits such a dastardly crime.
I have found that this cowardly behaviour thrives under the cover of silence, as do the lifelong problems to which it sadly gives rise.
I have always seen children as being domestic violence’s key accomplices where children are silenced by blind loyalty and fear as well as by a social culture around the issue.
Some victims of domestic violence believe that the media can sometimes present them as being invisible. They often feel that they are being presented as collateral damage, marginal to the real scene of gendered violence between adults. For so many reasons, I have found that domestic violence is not something children, even grown-up children, tend to speak about.
As a therapist, I am acutely aware of the complex reasons for that silence. I believe it’s time for the children of domestic violence to be heard, seen, and supported.
We must not forget that victims and their families are at their wits’ end. We owe it to them to throw everything at this national crisis.
This is an open letter to Tánaiste Micheál Martin and EU Commissioner Michael McGrath.
Michael McGrath is a well respected politician in the Cork area and beyond.
His appointment as EU commissioner reflects the Government’s confidence in him and he has now been appointed EU commissioner for democracy, justice, and rule of law.
Over the past few years while Mr McGrath sat at the table as a minister, a situation has developed in Cork City whereby law-abiding citizens and business owners feel badly let down due to ongoing criminal activities on the streets of our city.
Despite this matter being discussed on local and national radio — also newspapers — no solution has been forthcoming.
Recently Micheál Martin commented on the lack of gardaí on the streets.
It appears to me that Mr Martin, although one of the most senior TDs and ministers in the Dáil, is somewhat confused. Who does he think is responsible for putting gardaí on our streets?
Let me assist you, Tánaiste, in that regard: The Garda Commissioner is employed by and reports to the Government of Ireland.
In that regard I suggest the Government has a duty and responsibility to instruct the Garda Commissioner accordingly.
If you need any advice, Tánaiste, I can recommend some excellent, retired former senior Garda officers who could assist you.
Meanwhile, I would like to remind you Tánaiste, you and your ministerial colleagues take the emoluments, take the pension contributions — now take the responsibility.
I know it is completely wrong, and dangerous, for provisional licence holders to avail of continuous provisional licences, without ever having taken a test.
I think the much more serious issue that these drivers are blatantly breaking the law, by not having L-plates on their cars, by driving without a qualified driver with them, and not being covered by insurance.
Even if they have paid for insurance, and have their insurance certificate with them, by driving unaccompanied, their insurance is invalid. For some unknown reason, the gardaí allow these drivers to openly flout the law. There is no accountability on why the gardaí do not enforce the rules of the road, meaning more lives are being needlessly lost on our roads.
It’s a ridiculous situation when a person can fail a test and get into their car and drive out of the centre (‘Department delays provisional licence crackdown until driver testing system clears backlog’, Irish Examiner, September 23).
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41481571.html You should not be able to get insurance if you have not sat a test and, if you failed, you should have to produce evidence of your application to sit it again.
There also should be a limit of three to five attempts and no more will be permitted. Some people are simply just not good drivers and a risk to other road users. No wonder insurance for qualified drivers is so high. We need to tighten legislation around this. The RSA, in my view, is a total failure of a body. I live in a rural area and I see kids using their phones while driving tractors despite not being old enough to even apply for provisional licence.
I refer to the recent Will Goodbody’s RTÉ report on the research by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and to Charles Dickens’s quote “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”.
The 21% of adults who do not have financial arrangements in place for retirement are probably just surviving on their income. Encouraging them to set up a pension may only increase their misery.
Claiming these people who may not now be paying any income tax “are potentially missing out on the tax benefits” and claiming tax deferral is tax relief is incredulous. Those on low income may end up paying more tax when drawing their pension than any tax benefit received on pension contributions.
Claiming “the longer-term value of even a very small regular contribution will be surprising” is very true but misleading. Experience has shown that most historic private pension plans that guaranteed no return, returned very little.
Taking money from those who can least afford it is a crime against humanity. The Government pension auto-enrolment plan should be abandoned. Should we be looking at ways to redistribute our wealth to take people out of misery rather than setting up Ponzi schemes for the benefit of the pensions industry?
I suggest the CCPC spends time protecting consumers rather exploiting them?
The Israeli ambassador’s recent article arrogantly denounces and denigrates Ireland’s ‘simplistic’ understanding of the brutal and lethal campaign by Israel, resulting in the killing of over 41,000 Palestinians, mainly innocent women and children in Gaza.
Clearly, she doesn’t realise that we in Ireland are sickened and disturbed by the callous disregard for the lives of fellow humans since and before the October 7 last.
The ambassador is clearly unaware that rather than being absolved in Ireland, the atrocity carried out by Hamas was roundly and unanimously condemned by all Irish politicians and all Irish citizens. Any empathy for Israel was quickly dissipated however by the unbridled, barbaric and unending response of Israel’s army, led by the alleged war criminal Netanyahu, with the shameful complicitly of the USA. She conveniently fails to mention that Israel is in breach of numerous United Nations resolutions and still today is brutally and illegally confiscating Palestinian lands in the West Bank.
Ms Erlich berates Hamas for conducting a war of disinformation and that its claims are accepted and simplistically treated as fact in Ireland, while she fails to state that Israel has barred all foreign press from reporting its gruesome war crimes including indiscriminate bombing, rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners and citizens.
Ironically, in the circumstances, the ambassador prays that the future will bring much needed peace. Regrettably, Israel’s barbaric behaviour ensures that Hamas and Hezbollah will grow stronger and will be empowered to inflict untold misery and mayhem on Israel for decades to come.