Domestic violence: Calls for ‘huge’ number of gardaí to deal with crimes after ‘haunting’ details in new report

A Dublin Garda specialising in tackling domestic violence has called for a national bureau dedicated to the crime “with huge numbers” of gardaí assigned to it.

Garda Shaunagh Gaffney, domestic abuse co-ordinator in Ballyfermot, was speaking at an event on Wednesday marking publication of research demonstrating the area was “disproportionately affected” by “elevated” levels of violence against women.

The Dublin City Council-funded report finds “numerous individuals” in Dublin 10 live with ongoing “risk of lethal violence” from partners who “have access to firearms”. It finds young women are being “groomed” into abusive relationships with the promise of drugs, while intergenerational cycles of violence through families are having a “devastating impact on children”.

One local woman “recalls a mother she had been working with describing how she had used her baby ‘as a shield’ to protect herself”, notes the report, titled Unveiling the Shadows: Dynamics of Domestic Violence and Abuse in Dublin 10.

Garda Gaffney, speaking in Cherry Orchard community centre, said unfortunately “domestics are part of our day-to-day work here in Ballyfermot”.

Not only were the abused women affected, she said, “there is a wider circle also affected. More often than not there are children witnessing this abuse, who have their own experiences of the abuse and coercive control.

“My own personal hope for An Garda Síochána is to see a dedicated domestic abuse unit with huge numbers. I would love nothing more than to see domestic abuse receive the same spotlight, the same number of investigators and interviewers and more importantly the same budget as the drugs and crimes units at a local level.

“I would also love to see in-person training and talks arranged for gardaí more regularly who are more often than not the ones assigned to these calls,” said Garda Gaffney.

Sean McDonnell, lead researcher on the report, said it had been “one of the most haunting pieces” of work he had done. He and co-researchers spoke to “dozens” of women aged from the late teens to elderly women who had survived abuse or knew women who had. Many felt Ballyfermot women’s lives were “ignored”.

“The abuse itself was carried out over sustained periods of time, sometimes years. The abusers themselves were seldom challenged and often went on to involve themselves in multiple relationships.”

The fact they were abusive was “not only known to the victims of the abuse but were also known within the community itself,” he continued.

“When we spoke to the women there was a strong feeling that there were aspects of the community that in some ways accommodate the aggression. There was a lack of services, there was no place for these women to go and there were very few situations in which they could leave these relationships in a safe and controlled way. Not only were they threatened but their families were threatened, their children were threatened.

“There was a strong sense from the women that not only was their lived experience ignored but actually the lived experience of women within this community was being ignored.

“What they were asking for was not simply that there be services available in the short to medium term but that on a day-to-day basis there be services available that these women could contact and find refuge,” said Mr McDonnell.