My Department has been working to establish precisely the actions which would need to be taken in order to ratify and implement the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence - the Istanbul convention. Clarification of some issues with a small number of government departments and agencies is still required. Once the actions necessary to implement the convention are fully established a plan will be put in place to complete those actions in order to ratify the Convention.
I intend to seek the approval of Government for Ireland to sign the Istanbul Convention early this year. This is a matter of priority for me.