SAFE Ireland Presidential Dialogue

Published: Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The National Women's Council of Ireland had the great pleasure of attending the Safe Ireland presidential dialogue this week "Now Your Talking", the first of a series of national conversations on domestic violence. Mary Davis, Michael D. Higgins, Sean Gallagher and Gay Mitchell attended the event with Miriam O Callaghan chairing plus an excellent turnout from organisations across the country. David Norris and Dana Rosemary Scanlon were in Dublin canvassing and sent their apologies while Martin McGuinness was in Cork but a representative from Sinn Fein attended.

Sharon O Halloran Director of Safe Ireland spoke eloquently on the issues faced daily by their 40 member refuge organisations. In just one day 555 women and 324 children received support from a domestic violence support service in 2010. She highlighted the plight of the women and children who could not be accommodated in a refuge due to the lack of space and highlighted that these same women and children were feeling the brunt of statutory agency policies that were often about saving money at the expense of a person's safety. She said that there had to be leadership and unwavering commitment to this issue and our new President and politicians can provide that leadership.

In their three minute slot to showcase their vision of a safer Ireland for women and children, each candidate pledged their commitment to highlighting this issue if they became President of Ireland. Mary Davis promised to hold regional conventions on various issues and she would make the first one about violence against women. She called for more services for women and children and committed to working to build a culture of philanthropy to help fund responses to violence against women.

Sean Gallagher said he would be a leader in the quest to find solutions for a safer Ireland and offered to be patron to Safe Ireland bringing more attention to the issue. Mr. Gallagher stressed the importance of education and raising awareness of domestic violence among young men and boys and the involvement of men in this national dialogue. He pledged to support opportunities for women's economic independence and raise these issues with his entrepreneurial contacts with a view to encouraging funding to refuges.

Michael D. Higgins in a passionate speech pledged to encourage the government to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence which opened for signatory in May 2011. He also promised to highlight 25th November annually as International Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women until we see real progress in its eradication and vowed to keep violence against women on the agenda with the Taoiseach in policy discussions.

Presidential candidate Gay Mitchell was vague on the issue of domestic violence but he promised that he would use the Presidency to bring visibility to the issue if elected. It was clear from the dialogue that Michael D Higgins and Sean Gallagher were the candidates that demonstrated the deepest knowledge of the issues surrounding domestic violence and the most concrete examples of what role they would play as President in supporting the eradication of this violence from Irish society.

All candidates said they would push for the referendum on children rights to be introduced without any further delay to protect children in abusive situations. The event concluded with the strong message that men needed to be involved and actively campaigning on this issue for real progress to be made. As Safe Ireland concluded, Now You're Talking...Lets Keep Talking....

Jacqueline Healy