I welcome the introduction of Jennie's law. I commend her brother Jason on all of the campaigning he has done over a number of years to bring this about. My hope it will at least bring a stigma to what is called domestic violence. There has not really been the kind of stigma there should have been over the years. I want to put this in context. Women's Aid released its report recently. It shows a 33% increase in violence in the home against women in 2025. That is a 33% increase in disclosures. We do not know if this reflects a similar increase in the level of violence, but I reckon it is a bit of both. More awareness, non-acceptance and less tolerance are also factors. Women's Aid's front-line services heard 62,275 disclosures, an overall increase of one third, as I said. Some 85% of these women were abused by a current or former partner. In fact, one third were abused by a former partner, which shows that the old cliche of "Why does she not leave?" is not the solution because the relationship ending does not mean the abuse ends. There are serious challenges within the family justice system, post-separation abuse and the housing crisis which is trapping women and forcing them to choose between violence or homelessness that the Minister has to address. We have all had many contacts on that issue. What kind of abuse are we talking about? Trigger warning for anybody who is listening in, but there were 1,522 disclosures of abuse during pregnancy or just after a baby was born and 1,321 threats to kill women, children and family members or to self-harm. We have to recognise that on this island yesterday, another woman and child were murdered in the family home in Ballymena. There were two femicides last week. There have been 670 disclosures of abusers threatening to take children from their mothers, as well as rape, non-fatal strangulation against women, stalking online and offline - the list goes on. Every ten minutes a woman or girl is killed by a family member or partner in the world. It is a relentless situation. In Ireland, it is a huge problem. Last week, there was an unbelievable situation where two women were murdered. One, because she was killed by somebody of a different nationality and she potentially was in a relationship with suspect - there has been no trial - she got different treatment. There were comments on her own social media page condemning her and victim-blaming her. Imagine her daughter and her family had to see that. That is because there are racists in this country congealing around the issue of gender-based violence and trying to turn it into a race issue - people who have no interest in violence against women at any other time except if it is carried out by someone who is not Irish.

Sentiment score: -0.23