Debate contribution: Strategic Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls: Implementation

Debate contribution by Mr Jim Allister KC on 26 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Jim Allister KC

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

26 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Strategic Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls: Implementation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4230689

Read the official Assembly record

Text

This has been an important and indisputably necessary debate, in which significant and essential things have been said in the motion, particularly in regard to femicide, and in many of the speeches. One of the issues touched on by Ms Hunter, for example, was victim blaming. Others talked about misogyny, and so they should. However, the proposers of the motion need to take a long, hard look at their organisation. Where on the spectrum of victim blaming would these words appear:

“You know ... sometimes abusers are so manipulative that the ... abused actually enjoy it.”?

They are certainly misogynistic. They are certainly victim blaming. They are the words of Gerry Adams to Máiría Cahill, a young woman who reported to senior Sinn Féin figures her repeated rape and abuse by a prominent IRA man and was then subjected to a kangaroo court by that party and organisation and made to confront her abuser. In the words of Máiría Cahill:

"Sinn Féin told everyone I was a liar, and they still can't admit that I told the truth."

That is borne out by the notorious response of she who is now the First Minister:

"It's not for me to say that I believe"

Máiría Cahill. We then come to the House and talk about misogyny and victim blaming, yet we have a motion from a party from which all the matters that I have read out originate. The hypocrisy of that needs to be addressed. It is clear that these are difficult issues. I have seen them from a side that other Members probably have not, which is through the courts. Yes, it is necessary to protect witnesses and to hedge around them all the assistance that there is, but, at the end of the day, our system is a criminal justice system, if justice is to be attained. As a criminal justice system, it requires the rights not just of the victim, which are very important, but of others to be observed, and cross-examination cannot be dispensed with in a criminal jurisdiction. It is easy to say that we have to do more, but we have to set that in the context of realising that there are certain restricting realities, particularly when dealing with the criminal justice system. Yes, let us make it as easy and as straightforward as we can, but we cannot contradict the fundamentals of the proof system and the justice system. The final thing that I want to say is that the motion:

"condemns the budget cuts imposed by the British Government".

Those are now the cuts of the Sinn Féin Finance Minister. Since we adopted the Budget, it is now the budgetary approach of the Executive, so it is time to own up to that. It is time to face that. If something is to be done about it, the responsibility now lies with those who are promoting the motion. Let us see whether the budget cuts continue, or will they now be blamed in perpetuity on someone else? You to have to man up. You have to own up to what is now your own budgetary situation.

524 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:41 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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