The Labour Party has demanded sentencing reform to protect and support victims of violent crime. 

The party will use a Dáil motion this week to highlight what it calls an 'epidemic' of gender-based violence.

“There is an issue about consistency in sentencing and the need to ensure that judges are applying consistent criteria when they’re deciding to suspend sentences,” party leader Ivana Bacik said. 

“Now, we did establish in 2019 a Judicial Council and that is supposed to provide us with a sentencing database and more general information about patterns in sentencing.

“The council is also supposed to provide guidelines but we haven’t yet seen those sentencing guidelines for judges.” 

Housing and domestic violence

Separately, Dublin City Council yesterday passed underlining the link between housing and domestic violence.

It follows a report highlighting high levels of violence against women in the Cherry Orchard area of the city. 

The motion was proposed by People Before Profit Councillor Hazel de Nortúin who warned that housing insecurity traps women in dangerous situations. 

She said it is important to highlight that the vast majority of violence against women occurs within their own homes, by their own partners.

“Family members talking about how it was difficult with their daughters being involved in domestic violence, about women who were saying that perpetrators have been identified in the community and nobody has called them out on it - because it’s unsafe to do so and it’s isolating,” she said. 

“I have also experience of one woman who said she had to use her children as a shield to stop the level of violence that was being pushed upon her.”

According to Safe Ireland, almost a third of women across the world have experienced physical violence from an intimate partner.

Main image: Labour's Ivana Bacik outside Leinster House. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie