There are reports that girls in Presentation College Carlow have been told not to wear leggings to school because they are too revealing of their bodies and make teachers uncomfortable. I understand the principal was on the radio this morning to challenge the reports. Clearly, young people, male and female, in the school are very upset and believe that something very wrong happened here. There must be no place for victim blaming or body shaming in our schools and I ask that the Department investigates this matter further.

Women and girls in our society have to put up with crap all their lives. Last week, we saw sexual abuse on a grand scale with the mass sharing of intimate images online without consent. This morning, researchers in Trinity and Maynooth tell us one in five Irish women have experienced rape. Today is the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Globally, each year as many women of reproductive age die from male violence as die from cancer. More suffer ill health as a result of this violence than suffer ill health from all of the traffic accidents and malaria cases in the world combined. The programme for Government describes sexual violence as an epidemic in our society. It has worsened in the Covid era and is now widely described as the shadow pandemic. I put it to the Taoiseach that he is not tackling it in the way he would tackle either an epidemic or a pandemic. With the pandemic the Government put society on a war footing. It organised lockdowns. The message to mask up, socially distance and wash our hands comes at us every day, and rightly so, from radio, television and the press. With the epidemic of sexual violence where are the emergency measures? The Taoiseach will commission a report here and a speech is made there and a few million euro is thrown at the problem from time to time.

Gender-based violence and sexism are systemic issues. To a greater or lesser degree, all of the institutions of the State and others are laced through with sexism. Mass feminist movements from Chile to Spain and from Poland to Peru are putting the system in the dock and pointing the finger at the establishment and the state. These movements offer real hope for the future. Two years ago, eight months after the Belfast rape trial and at the time of the Cork rape trial, my colleague, Ruth Coppinger, held up a thong in the Dáil in protest at a woman's clothing being used as evidence in a rape case. Two years on, I will conclude by asking the following questions. Will the Taoiseach support the establishment of a task force on gender-based violence, staff it with survivors, advocates and women who work in the sector, set aside a very healthy budget and pledge to implement its proposals? When will the Taoiseach act to stop victim blaming in the courts? When will he act to stop rape myths being used in trials? When will consent be made the central issue in rape cases?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. In relation to the Presentation Secondary School in Carlow, I did not hear the interview this morning but I agree with the Deputy that there is no place for victim shaming in any context and the Department of Education and the Minister will clearly receive a report on it. If the principal is challenging the report of what we read in the media, in fairness to the House we have to seek out the full facts before passing commentary on it.

In terms of the broader issue, the Deputy summed it up when he said gender based violence and sexism are systemic. This is why it requires a systemic response. It cannot just be a response for six weeks or six months. Our response has to be truly systemic throughout our society. It has to be based on fundamental human values of respect for one another, for the dignity of the human person and for the most basic of human values. Those basic human values, particularly not to injure others and not in any shape or form ever raise a hand or engage in violence towards a woman, are something that were ingrained in earlier years. It is wrong and it is horrific that the level of violence is as it is. We know from various reports on abuse itself that it has been systemic and it needs a systemic response. It needs constant engagement at all levels of society from the earliest ages in terms of inculcating basic values of respect, toleration and understanding the dignity of the human being and that certain actions are never right in any circumstance.

In my earlier response to Deputy McDonald, I outlined the Government's broad range of commitments. The implementation of the O'Malley report is very important. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is very committed to this area and is acting on a number of fronts, not least the legislation to be brought in on the sharing of intimate images.

The Labour Party did that.

Let us not have a row about something that is important and good. We should press ahead and do it. Also in terms of the O'Malley report, the Minister has already brought it to Cabinet and published it and is determined to take action and deal with this. In accordance with the commitments in the programme for the Government we are determined to do it.

In terms of the scale and horror of this issue, Mary Crilly from the sexual violence centre in Cork recently said:

I have yet to meet a homeless woman who hasn't been raped. They tend to say "I've lost count of the number of times that I've been raped."

I welcome the fact there is to be a pilot scheme in Cork to provide a refuge for homeless rape victims but I ask the Taoiseach what is the timescale for this initiative to come to fruition. In all of Cork city and county there is one refuge for families who are victims of gender-based violence. There is space for six families there but it had to be restricted to two families during Covid. This is a sign of the scale of the failure of the Government and the State and the lack of investment in this issue. I listened to the Taoiseach when he said the Department of Education will clearly receive a report on the events in the school in Carlow. I ask him to comment that the Department will not just receive a report from the school authorities but will seek the views, opinions and experiences of the students themselves on this issue.

I recently met Mary Crilly from the Cork Rape Crisis Centre and I have had long engagement with her through her extraordinary work over the years on behalf of rape victims. When I was Minister for Health and Children, we were involved in setting up the first forensic sexual violence centre in the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital in Cork.

Mary Crilly is a tireless worker. I met Mary Crilly, Caitriona Twomey and Lavinia Kerwick at Cork Penny Dinners recently to discuss the phenomenon of the rape of homeless women and men. It was quite a shocking story that they had to tell. They have come forward with an idea around developing a pilot project to help the homeless and to protect the homeless from sexual violence and rape. I said I felt that was a very good idea and that I would pursue it with them and with the homeless authorities, and that the local authority and the HSE would have to be involved. I said we would take a co-ordinated approach to dealing with this issue and then see if a model could be developed that could then be rolled out across the country. Given the evidence they brought forward to us, it is an issue that merits that consideration, although it will take a bit of time to get that up and running and to get it right.