A 24 percent increase in barring order breaches in Clare has been recorded by An Garda Síochána.
In 2020, Gardaí in Clare responded on 89 occasions to a breach of barring, safety or protection orders in the county. This was an increase of 17 compared with the equivalent of 72 instances dealt with in 2019.
Thirty more domestic disputes were dealt with by Gardaí last year, the eight percent increase saw 425 domestic dispute offences responded to in 2020 compared with the 395 in 2019.
Detail on the cases broken down by gender was sought by Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) at February’s sitting of the Clare Joint Policing Committee (JPC). “Is there anything around the perpetrators to encourage them not to break the orders,” she queried.
Policy is in place, Superintendent Brendan McDonagh whereby if a barring order exists “and the perpetrator is at the house we will pursue it and the person will be brought to Court”.
Findings on the breaches and domestic disputes by gender were requested again by the Inagh native, “It would be interesting to see if there was an increase in domestic violence towards men”.
Supt McDonagh informed the meeting that a gender breakdown existed but “because of GDPR we can’t put it out because it may identify a person, I could talk to a person privately but not on this forum”.
“I’m not looking for any names just the figures,” Senator Garvey responded to which Supt McDonagh stressed, “When figures are very low on one side it can identify people”.
