‘Ban parental visits by violent former partners’

WOMEN’S Aid has called for court-permitted parental visits to be banned until there can be a guarantee of safety for those involved.

In 2017 alone there were over 428 reports of women being abused during parental access visits, with 97 cases of children being harmed.

The group’s 2017 report into domestic violence revealed that there were 19,385 instances reported to them last year, with 15,833 of the cases related to violence against women, and an additional 3,552 cases of child abuse within abusive relationships.

The group wants a policy of ‘no contact until contact is safe’ for women who have suffered domestic violence.

Its report revealed that 28% of those who contacted Women’s Aid were being abused by former partners.

Margaret Martin, director of Women’s Aid, said that this needed to be changed as ‘a matter of urgency’.

‘While the perpetrator is barred from the house, he often still has unsupervised access to the children and uses that access to continue abusing them directly and/or through having the children witness the abuse of their mother,’ she said.

A woman named Jessica, who had experienced ongoing harassment from her children’s father, spoke on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland about the issue, and said: ‘There is no law currently to stop somebody from contacting you, so if you decide that you want to leave an abusive relationship, you can be bombarded with as many text messages as he wants.’

The report also indicated that the legal system was at times ‘unsupportive’ towards victims of domestic violence. While 65% of victims described the support they received from gardaí as helpful, 35% said it was not.