The older I get and the longer I am in politics, the more frustrating I find it when International Women's Day rolls around every year. We come in here and people from all the benches say the same things. We talk about the challenges women face and the progress being made. It sort of seems, though, that everything is just set aside for that day, and then we all go back to our business. Those fundamental structural and cultural changes that we need to see really have not happened yet. Last Friday, when I was thinking about what I was going to say in this speech, I went onto The Irish Times website and was blown away as I went through the different news articles. There was an article about the family of a woman murdered by her husband in Dublin being distressed after the killer was granted day release. There was an article about the Ana Kriégel murder. There was an article about Ashling Murphy's murder. There was an article about the doctor who was jailed for eight years for raping a nurse as she slept. There was an article about the Natalie McNally murder trial. It was article after article, and they were all saying the same thing: that there was a huge problem in this country with gender-based violence. It is a huge problem and we are not tackling it. I would recommend that everyone have a look online at the site of an influencer called Chloe Koyce. A number of months ago, she put up a video that showed someone following her. She was on a night out with her friends. A man followed her into her hotel, into the lift, took off his belt, stood behind her, made sort of gestures with the belt and then, essentially, got out on the same floor in her hotel. If it was not for the fact that her mother was in the room when she knocked on the door, she is convinced something awful would have happened to her. If we look at that video, we will see how scared she was when she was relaying the story. What was really stark to me was how she kept on saying that she did not want the story to be about her and that she wanted everyone to know she did absolutely everything right. Her friends went out and made sure they saw one another get into the taxis. Her friend got into a taxi and stood by the door of the taxi watching Chloe go into the hotel to make sure she got through her hotel door safely. This man just slipped in right behind. It was incredible. Girls and young women in this country are made to feel unsafe all the time. They have to make themselves small and unseen. They make excuses when they are treated in that manner. Now, that chap was convicted. He was given a six-month suspended sentence. Part of it was because he had had 14 pints. I do not care how many pints he had. You do not follow a young woman, you do not take your belt off and you do not threaten someone. It is disgraceful. We need to look at all these instances and ensure there is accountability for what happens. There can be no excuse. All that does is it makes every other woman's life in this country smaller and smaller as they try to make themselves disappear so they do not suffer gender-based violence. I ask the Minister of State to look at that video. It is really eye-opening.

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