Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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2. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the date on which Ireland will ratify the Istanbul Convention. [40595/16]

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, who I presume will take this question, the date on which the Istanbul Convention will be ratified.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I will take this question and I thank the Deputy for raising it. Obviously, we are totally committed to tackling domestic violence. I will be bringing legislation to the Cabinet this Tuesday in regard to the domestic violence Bill and to the full implementation of the Istanbul Convention. Many of the actions required by provisions in the Istanbul Convention are being implemented on a daily basis under current legislation and administrative practice. There are 18 outstanding actions necessary to ratify it. They were published in the multi-annual action plan when we signed the convention on 5 November 2015 and they are also contained in the new strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. It is intended that all of these will be delivered by the first quarter of 2018.

The domestic violence Bill enactment is a key part of going towards ratifying the convention. This would extend access to interim barring orders and give judges power to refer perpetrators to programmes both of which are required under the Istanbul Convention. We will also bring the victims of crime Bill to Cabinet on Tuesday next week. Once both of those Bills go through the House, that will be a very significant advancement, which will take us much closer to ratifying the Istanbul Convention.

The overall position in respect of the 18 actions which we need to fulfil is that eight actions are on target, two actions are completed, the other four cover the Bills I mentioned and four actions have yet to commence. Two of these actions do not arise until the convention is ratified. I can send the Deputy a detailed note on this, if he wishes. I have a quite a bit of information on it.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I would welcome that information if the Minister could forward it to me. On the items of legislation, the pre-legislative scrutiny of the domestic violence Bill took place in September of last year. I know events probably overtook its publication in recent months given the issue around Garda pay and other issues which have arisen. It is the Minister's intention to publish both Bills and have them passed by the summer of next year or are we looking at the first quarter of 2018 as she said? Will she give some indication of when she hopes to publish them?

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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At going well at Cabinet next Tuesday, when I will bring these two items of legislation forward, and obviously this is up to the Business Committee of the House, I would hope that we could progress them in the first half of next year. If we can then deal with any other outstanding actions, including some of the ones I mentioned, we could bring forward the ratification. However, right now the intention is to be absolutely sure that we can ratify the convention in the first quarter of 2018, but I would hope those two items of legislation could be dealt with before the summer of next year.