Debate contribution: Violence against Women and Girls: Deaths of Amy Doherty and Ellie Flanagan

Debate contribution by Ms Claire Sugden on 23 March 2026.

MLA

Ms Claire Sugden

Party at the time

Independent

Date

23 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Matter of the Day

Heading

Violence against Women and Girls: Deaths of Amy Doherty and Ellie Flanagan

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5465154

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for your kind comments to me and your subsequent comments about domestic abuse. Another woman has lost her life in Northern Ireland. The uncomfortable truth is that none of us can say that we are surprised. I offer my sincere condolences to the families of Amy Doherty and Ellie Flanagan. Their loss is unimaginable, and, sadly, two beautiful babies have lost the most important person in their life. We have a strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. We accept that the issue is complex and that it will not be fixed overnight, but we have to ask — honestly and directly — what is changing. What we are seeing suggests that not enough is changing. We are still not prepared to confront clearly enough what is at the heart of this: misogyny, male aggression and the normalisation of both. They can show up in different ways. At one end, it is the objectification and devaluing of women, and, at the other, it is violence and, in the worst cases, murder. That does not just destroy the lives of victims; it devastates families, traumatises communities and, ultimately, ruins the lives of the perpetrators. We can see those attitudes being reinforced in parts of our culture and online spaces with the like of harmful messages about women and relationships being amplified and normalised. However, it does not begin there; it begins much earlier. It begins in how children are raised; what they see; what they hear; and what they learn about respect, relationships and boundaries. It begins in our homes, schools and how we support families. However, our response is still weighted towards the point at which things have already gone wrong. Justice steps in after the crime, and health services respond to trauma, addiction and mental health issues once they have already taken hold. That is not prevention. If we are serious about reducing violence, we have to be serious about where it starts. That means properly resourcing early intervention; equipping parents; ensuring that education is doing more to teach about healthy relationships and emotional resilience; and recognising the role of trauma and addressing it before it manifests as harm. I accept that prevention is harder to measure, because you cannot count the crime that did not happen, but that is exactly the point, because, if we continue to measure success only by how we respond after the fact, we will be standing here, after the next tragedy, saying the same things. We have a severe problem of violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland. The question is whether we are prepared to act on that knowledge at the point at which it is most meaningful. Thank you.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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