Call for Government to fund new study in sexual violence in Ireland
There are calls for the Government to carry out a new study into sexual violence, 15 years from when the first one was published.
The SAVI report from 2002 found one in four women and one in five children in Ireland were victims of sexual assault.
The Rape Crisis Network says funding to carry out the research has been scrapped but Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he's keeping an "open mind" regarding the issue.
Among the findings of the previous report were that one in five girls and one in six boys in Ireland are abused before reaching the age of 17, while as adults one in five women and one in 10 men have been assaulted.
The 2002 report also found that one quarter of the perpetrators of the attacks were under 17 themselves.
Supporters of carrying out a new study say statistics are important in framing policy, and aspects of the 2002 report are outdated now.
