By Laura Fitzgerald
Since being elected one year ago, Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD, made it a priority to campaign for justice for survivors of gender based violence.
The systemic misogyny and routine victim-blaming and re-traumatisation that survivors of gender and sexual violence receive when seeking justice, has been documented powerfully by those affected. Sarah Grace, a survivor of a brutal sexual assault, despite achieving something very rare in the system, namely a conviction for her attacker, said that she “would take the attack again tenfold instead of going through the trial”. One of the most egregious examples of re-traumatising of victims is the ability for defence teams to access the therapy notes of victims of gender and sexual violence. Paula
Doyle succinctly summed the horror of this for survivors by detailing how her “second violation was when the Irish Judicial System allowed…[her] rapist to read my private counselling notes”.
Soon after taking her seat in the current Dáil, Ruth proposed a simple bill to ban this practice. In June 2025, she was able to take it to second stage. The Government blocked it progressing to committee stage, proposing a twelve month stay on the Bill, citing their own plans to bring in legislation to deal with the substantive issue.
Government legislation a smokescreen
However, the proposed Government legislation is not proposing a ban, and the meagre proposed change would still make it possible for therapy notes to be accessed, if a judge deemed them pertinent. Judges commonly indicate unenlightened views (to say the least) about sexual and gender based violence – they should not be granted this power. But beyond that, even a prospect of any kind that counselling notes could be accessed by their abuser is potentially traumatising, and could seriously hamper a survivors’ engagement with the support and care they need to heal. This mooted legislation was a blow to the survivors who have been campaigning on this issue.
Nonetheless, in recent weeks, the momentum for a full ban has been growing. Survivors who have been speaking out for years on this issue totally rebuked this proposed Government legislation.
Therapists Against Harm
Therapist activists also deepened the campaign, with a new group Therapists Against Harm organising a grassroots campaign since the start of the year, organising therapists from across the state. Notably, the lobbying of this group has successfully resulted in all the main professional bodies of therapists stating their support for a full ban.
Perhaps most importantly, the Justice Committee tasked with scrutinising the Government legislation was successfully lobbied. Hazel Behan gave a powerful contribution at this Oireachtas Committee, detailing the unspeakably cruelty and harm imposed on herself and other survivors whose private therapy notes have been accessed by their abusers via the courts. Therapists Against Harm corresponded extensively with the Committee in writing. The outcome: the Justice Committee has now explicitly recommended a change to the Minister’s proposal, publicising its support for a full ban. The Committee included sympathetic and progressive voices such as that of Senator Lynn Ruane, but fundamentally Government TDs had to be swayed to achieve this outcome. A Fine Gael TD on the Committee has even produced a video for social media rejecting the Minister for Justice and her party colleague’s proposals!
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”, said abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass. The Justice Committee was forced to be confronted with the horror of this practice by a massive demand coming from below, that was given impetus and expression by Ruth’s voice and actions in the Dáil. Since the Justice Committee publicised its findings, the National Women’s Council, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and the Sligo Rape Crisis have all rowed in to support a full ban.
Socialist feminist protests and marches
On 25 November, ROSA Socialist Feminist Movement organised protests and marches across the country further highlighting this issue on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In Dublin, ROSA – working with survivors and therapists – organised a march of 1500 to the Department of Justice. Bairbre Kelly from Therapists Against Harm delivered bags of shredded notes of her and her colleagues while she defiantly proclaimed that they will refuse to hand over their clients’ records should they be requested — that the Minister has no choice but to recognise this reality and implement a full ban.
Momentum is growing but a victory for survivors is far from guaranteed. We know from the Repeal / Abortion Rights movement that we can force through change when we rise up together for our rights and freedoms. Uplift has this petition you can utilise. Moreover, every Government TD needs to feel the heat. Email them. Organise a delegation from your locality to go and question your local TD about this issue. Organise a peaceful picket outside their office if they don’t commit, with quotes from survivors illustrating how damaging the status quo is.
This issue is only one sliver of the full picture of the misogyny and victim blaming rife in the state and justice system. However, at this terrifying moment in which Trump, the most powerful politician in the world, can seek to silence a female journalist with “quiet piggy”; where far right forces are growing that want to ban abortion and marriage equality and view women as subservient to men and preach extreme violence against queer folk and people of colour — any chance for a step forward for our freedom must be seized. We need this so much for the sake of all survivors and in the process we can show that we are never accepting going backwards to the dark days of Catholic Church control over our bodies and lives. The socialist feminist struggle against patriarchy and capitalism cannot be quelled as it’s innately a struggle for the dignity and freedom for everyone.
