“Today is a day of hope. Our sister, our absolutely amazing sister has her voice heard. Her voice is gone, but we will never stop fighting for Jennifer.”

So today in the Seanad, I introduced my Bill in terms of establishing a domestic violence register. This is an important day and very much informed by the work that my colleague, Deputy Jim O’Callaghan has been doing and also by Jason Poole. On the 17th of April 2021.

Jason’s sister, Jennifer was very sadly murdered by a former partner. Now it turned out afterwards that her former partner had actually been in jail for two years for a previous domestic violence assault. If Jennifer had been aware of this, there is no doubt that she would be alive today.

So what I have introduced is the Domestic Violence Register, which will work in the same way as a Sexual Offenders Register where if somebody is convicted of domestic violence or coercive control, that they go on a register and it is their duty and responsibility to inform Garda where they live in a country where we’ve had 256 deaths, violent deaths of women since 1996, 87% of those by men known to them.

It’s absolutely crucial that we do what we can to protect more women from dying violently like this.

FIANNA FÁIL’S JUSTICE spokesman Jim O’Callaghan has called for the government to “carefully consider and act upon” remarks made by a District Court judge in which he called for mandatory legal aid for all domestic violence cases.

Opposition justice spokespeople have also called for the legal aid income threshold to be revised, with Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordán pledging to raise Judge John Campbell’s remarks with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee when the Dáil resumes.

The current upper age limit of 35 for joining An Garda Síochána will “significantly increase” under radical fresh proposals.

The new age ceiling is thought likely to land between 45 and 50 years as all efforts are made to boost the uniformed ranks.

The force needs additional personnel across a variety of specialist positions, in addition to requiring regular officers for patrol and station purposes.

Our great international city deserves powerful governance structures, subject to checks and balances, to oversee the capital’s operation and management

Dublin is a great international capital city. It is an exciting place to live, work and visit. Although, in an Irish context, it is viewed alongside our other cities such as Cork, Limerick and Galway, its real comparators are major European cities such as London, Amsterdam and Berlin.

There have been calls for changes to garda recruitment after figures revealed that 71 gardaí resigned from the force so far this year.

Figures accurate to the end of June also show a further 172 retired in the first six months of the year.

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan has called for the policy of mandatory retirement at the age of 60 to be reconsidered.

Gardaí should be recruited from among Irish emigrants to Australia, and members of the force allowed to work beyond the age of 60 instead of retiring, a TD has said.

Innovative thinking is needed to stop the rise in crime and the decline in garda numbers, according to Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan.

Fianna Fáil’s Justice spokesperson Jim O’Callaghan has called for a change “in the terms and conditions” of garda recruitment in a bid to encourage people to join the force.

There was a recruitment crisis, there were 14,000 members of An Garda Síochána, the same level as 20 years ago while the population had increased significantly since then, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

In June of this year on the birthday of William Butler Yeats I was asked by Sandymount and Merrion Residents’ Association to recite one of Yeats’ poems in Sandymount Green.
I chose “Come Gather Round Me Parnellites” in memory of my late friend Frank Callanan who was a great Parnellite.

The hate crime bill could end up criminalising people because of ill-considered abusive comments made at the time of an offence, when in fact hatred did not motivate their offence; also the ‘other genders’ part of the bill needs revisiting