The Garda Inspectorate has criticised An Garda Síochána's handling of domestic abuse cases and said they need to do more to prevent the crime, protect the victims and manage the perpetrators.
In a new report published today, the Inspectorate found that while gardaí are committed to providing a high quality service, the service is not consistent across the organisation.
It said all victims of domestic violence need to receive a "trauma informed service" when they report the crime to gardaí.
It also recommends that the gardaí develop more effective multi-agency working arrangements, be more proactive in disrupting and managing offenders and put in place a dedicated garda domestic abuse strategy.
The Inspectorate's survey also found that half of the 446 victims who reported domestic abuse to gardaí were dissatisfied with the response, and that the most dissatisfied were those who had reported the crime in person at a garda station.
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Chief Inspector Mark Toland said this was because the victims felt there was little or no privacy in which to report the crime and they may have had to speak to a garda at the public counter where other business was being conducted.
He also said that victims were unhappy that they were not speaking to a specialist garda trained to deal with domestic abuse cases.
He said: "We were surprised to see that those who attended a Garda station were the least satisfied with the service they received. Some of that is about the privacy.
"We would like to see them taken to a quiet room to be treated with respect and empathy and in a trauma-informed way."
He said divisional Chief Superintendents should be looking at the services provided to victims who come into front counters and at an organisational level "we didn't find any monitoring of the service provided to victims."
Chief Inspector Toland said walking into a Garda station was a critical first step.
He was also concerned that dissatisfaction increased as an investigation continued.
He said: "It's about follow-up action, keeping victims up to date with developments in their cases. When an offender is arrested, when that when they're taken to court, their bail conditions to keep a victim up to date so they know exactly what's happening with their case.
"And we did see that satisfaction levels deteriorated as a case progressed."
Read the report in full here
The survey also showed that the dissatisfaction rate increased in time as victims became more unhappy with the gardaí as the cases progressed.
The satisfaction rate of 54% with the gardaí following the initial report fell to 31% as the case progressed.
Victims felt they were not being kept up to date with developments in their cases and those who reported multiple offences often felt they were dealing with different gardaí at different times and had to repeat their stories to different investigators.
Chief Inspector Toland said the report did not examine any backlog in the Courts Service but "it did find a significant proportion of cases didn't result in a conviction at court".
He said it was important victims were not discouraged from coming forward.
He said: "Despite some of the findings in our survey, I would encourage people to tell someone, ideally, report it, if not approach a victim service in your area.
"Tell someone, tell a relative, do not suffer in silence, tell someone, and with their support, hopefully they will have the confidence to report it to the police. And we want to bring perpetrators to justice and deal with those who are committing serious violence, primarily against women and young girls."
The inspectorate said the report showed that An Garda Siochána needs to be "far more proactive in tackling perpetrators of violence".
He said: "Where an arrest is an opportunity, they should take that opportunity and make sure they arrest offenders and bring them to justice."
Chief Inspector Toland said whilst there was room for improvement in the service and lots to do, the Inspectorate believed its recommendations would help deliver a better service to victims of domestic abuse.
He added that a multi-agency approach was needed.
Garda Headquarters said this afternoon that it would examine the report in detail, but insisted it continues to treat all cases of domestic abuse as "a priority" as part of its commitment to "keeping people safe".
It said it has in recent years invested significantly in the investigation of domestic and sexual violence, including establishing the National and Regional Protective Services Units and training over 300 specialist gardaí.
Last year, gardaí received over 65,000 domestic abuse related contacts, an average of 1,250 a week.
Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said that while a finding in the report that someone who has reported domestic abuse would do so again was a key indicator of trust and confidence in gardaí, the survey also highlighted areas for improvement, including in consistency of response.
Minister O'Callaghan said the Government remained committed to establishing a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and urged victims to come forward.
