The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, plans to publish legislation before Christmas which will provide fresh protections to victims of domestic violence, a spokesman for the Minister said yesterday.
The spokesman said that the legislation would address last month's Supreme Court ruling on interim barring orders as well as concerns raised by Women's Aid about the Domestic Violence Act, 1996.
He was speaking following a protest by Women's Aid outside Leinster House yesterday during which calls were made for to the courts to be able to reissue interim barring orders within certain time limits. The open-ended nature of such orders up to the ruling resulted in the Supreme Court deeming them unconstitutional.
However, the men's support group Amen warned the Minister against over-reacting to the court judgment and claimed that some of the comments in relation to it had been "ridiculously hysterical".
The group's national co-ordinator, Ms Mary Cleary, said legislation in the area had traditionally been enacted only after consultation with women's groups. "We feel men's views should be given equal consideration," she added.
Ms Cleary claimed that there were a number of serious flaws in the Act, including the fact that protection orders could, like interim barring orders, be issued on an ex parte basis, whereby there was no court hearing, nor a time limit for one. As a result, she said, it was "very easy for people to be sent out on their ear on foot of a protection order".
She said that Amen had requested a meeting with the Minister, but had not yet received a reply.
Speaking outside Leinster House, Ms Denise Charlton, the director of Women's Aid, claimed that some perpetrators of abuse had taken advantage of the Supreme Court ruling, and the "confusion" surrounding it, by moving back in with their partners. Following the rescinding of interim barring orders, some family lawyers had had to recommend that women take refuge in emergency accommodation.
Ms Charlton said there were a number of other weaknesses in the Act. These included the fact that barring orders were not necessarily transferred to abuse victims following separations. There was also an absence of protection mechanisms in relationships where partners were not living together continuously.
