Taoiseach praises woman beaten unconscious by soldier for ‘speaking out’

By Cate McCurry and Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

Taoiseach Simon Harris has praised a woman for coming forward and speaking out after she was assaulted by a serving soldier.

Cathal Crotty (22), with an address at Parkroe Heights, Ardnacrusha, Co Clare, received a suspended sentence for assaulting Natasha O’Brien in Limerick in 2022.

Crotty beat Ms O'Brien unconscious in a random street attack, and boasted about it afterwards on social media. Crotty also wrongly told gardaí who arrested him that Ms O'Brien had instigated the attack.

Asked about the case on Friday, Mr Harris said he wanted to create “a very different society for young women”.

“I want to thank Natasha O’Brien and praise her for coming forward, for standing up, for speaking out,” Mr Harris said, speaking from the Isle of Man.

“I think that is really important. I would encourage any victim or survivor of violence, of gender-based violence to always come forward.”

Asked about the suspended sentence Crotty received, Mr Harris said: “I find myself precluded from being allowed to comment on the sentence of a court despite perhaps having quite a lot that I would have liked being able to say, other than let me say this – the legal process may not be concluded because it is absolutely always open to the DPP to appeal a sentence and also to appeal the leniency of a sentence.

“I need to be particularly careful in that context. But we are living in a country where there is still an epidemic of gender-based violence.

“We need to call that and every single person in Irish society, and every single person, no matter what role you’re in, has a role to play in relation to this.

“I know as a Government, we remain absolutely determined to create a society where there is a zero-tolerance approach in relation to this.

“We have a zero-tolerance approach in Ireland to sexual violence, to gender-based violence.

“It’s really important that every part of society plays its full role in getting us to that zero-tolerance place that we need to be, which we clearly aren’t there yet, let’s be absolutely categoric about that.

“There is still far too much violence against women in our country. I, as a Taoiseach, as a parent, as a father of a daughter, want to create a very different society for young women.”

The Defence Forces said it had begun internal proceedings in relation to Crotty, which Mr Harris welcomed.

“We should always expect people in our Defence Forces to be people of the highest standards, highest integrity and respect for the law,” he said.

Earlier, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that Ireland still had “a long way to go” in tackling violence against women.

Ms McEntee described the incident as a “vicious and unprovoked attack” and commended Ms O’Brien for her bravery in coming forward.

Speaking in general, she said that she expected the sexual offences legislation she had been working on to be enacted before the Dáil summer recess in three weeks’ time.

“In the next few weeks, there’ll be new laws implemented to make sure that if somebody gives character references in cases, that they are willing to come forward and stand over those and to be cross-examined … in cases when it comes to domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against women,” she told RTÉ radio.

“This is not in the middle of a trial where obviously you have somebody defending themselves, but where somebody has been found guilty and there is a sentencing, if somebody is willing to stand up knowing that someone has been found guilty, they should be in a position that they can be cross-examined, and that they should be able to stand over what they’re saying – and I say that broadly.”

She added: “My job is to make sure that there was a maximum sentence there and over the last number of years, what I have seen consistently, where you have assaults that have taken place, sentences have not seemed strong enough.

“That’s why I’ve doubled the sentence from five years to 10 years, giving greater discretion to the judges who are hearing the cases.”

When asked about the safety of women in Ireland in general, Ms McEntee said: “I think we have a long way to go.

“I think we’re in a much better space than we were.

“Women’s Aid last year saw more women than ever before seeking their help and I think we have to look at the positives of that.

“I don’t think that suddenly the number of women that are being assaulted and violently assaulted in their homes, or elsewhere, has increased that much in a year.

“I think it’s that more women are coming forward, because we’re talking about it, because we now have a whole-of-government strategy that says everybody has a responsibility to deal with this issue, because we’re talking about changing behaviours more broadly, because we’re talking about engaging with young people at the earliest stage to say that this type of behaviour and action is not to be tolerated.

“It’s not that long ago that people said, ‘well, that’s a domestic that’s in somebody’s home, we don’t have anything to do with that’.

“I think we’re much better than we were and we’re in a much better place than we were only a few years ago. But we have a long way to go.

“This is an epidemic. I really believe that.

“I think if what we saw what happened to Natasha was happening at the same rate as we know it’s happening in people’s homes, there wouldn’t be a day that we weren’t talking about it. But because it’s behind closed doors, because it’s in people’s homes, there’s still a reluctance to talk about it in the way that we should.”

“But I think we need to keep at it,” she said.