Council must increase efforts to raise awareness around domestic abuse, says GP and councillor 

A Cork city councillor, who encounters victims of domestic abuse in his profession as a GP, has spoken of the need for the council to “redouble” its efforts in engaging with support groups and raising awareness.

Fianna Fáil councillor John Sheehan made the comments at a meeting of council this week during a discussion on gender and sexuality-based violence.

It arose following a motion tabled by Labour Party councillor Peter Horgan proposing that the council would “proactively engage with stakeholder groups in Cork city and county on the best strategy to combat gender and sexuality based violence in an effort to eradicate such violence in our society”.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr Sheehan acknowledged that engagement has taken place with various groups but said he believed council should “redouble” its efforts in this regard.

Mr Sheehan, who also works as a GP in Blackpool, spoke of the importance of raising awareness of the issue of such violence.

“A lot of people are very reluctant, for obvious reasons, to talk about it.

“There’s a stigma, there’s a shame which as we’ve seen in Irish society over the decades is one of the most corrosive emotions that is out there and by bringing this out there and trying to get rid of the stigma, I think we certainly have a roll in highlighting this and bringing it to the fore.

“I’m always humbled in my day job... it’s a difficult conversation but when I raise the issue of domestic violence, the number of yesses that you get when people confirm that they’ve been domestically abused.”

Meanwhile his party colleague councillor Laura Harmon said the proposal to engage with stakeholder groups was a welcome one.

“We have some real pioneering figures in Cork when it comes to working on these issues – you only have to look at look at Mary Crilly in the Cork Sexual Violence Centre, the likes of Professor Louise Crowley in UCC, they’ve done amazing work in terms of bystander intervention, in terms of consent programmes,” she said.

Fianna Fáil councillor Mary Rose Desmond said she also supported the motion which she said would build on previous engagement with stakeholders.

“To be fair to this council I think it has always engaged with the stakeholders right across the city and certainly my experience with the women’s caucus over the last five years we have very much engaged and had the door open to be approached by the different groups and to work going into the future with them,” she said.

Among the points raised by Socialist Party councillor Brian McCarthy in his contribution was that the council should look at ways to “fully support” refuge services for women being abused and look at ways to expand the numbers of available places.