Alcohol & domestic violence reports
Key facts
DSGBV prevalence
- The 2022 Sexual Violence Survey found that 40% of adults have experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetime.
- Research by Women’s Aid found that 1 in 5 young women and 1 in 11 young men have experienced intimate partner abuse.
- According to Women’s Aid ‘Femicide Watch’, 275 women died violently between 1996 and the present day (as of 8th June 2025).
Alcohol & DSGBV
- Studies from Australia found that alcohol is involved in about 30-40% of both intimate partner and family violence.
- National research on domestic abuse in intimate partner relationships found that alcohol was a trigger for abusive behaviour in 34% of cases.
- Past national research found that alcohol was a factor in up to 70% of cases of domestic violence against women.
Alcohol availability & DSGBV
- A two-hour reduction in late-night trading hours in New South Wales, Australia, was found to reduce reports of domestic violence by 29%,
- A one-hour extension of licencing hours in Northern Ireland led to a 17% increase in alcohol-related crime.
Addiction & DSGBV
- According to the Saol Project report, ‘In Plain Sight’, at least 11,000 women in Ireland struggling with addiction are also experiencing domestic violence, with almost 50,000 having endured these simultaneously at some stage in their lives.
Children & DSGBV
- Research examining the presence of both child maltreatment and intimate partner violence found that they occurred during the same period in 45%–70% of studies.
Alcohol, sport & DSGBV
- International research demonstrates links between domestic violence and big sporting occasions with their associated marketing and increases in alcohol consumption.
Seasonality of alcohol consumption
- Alcohol consumption in the population is found to vary through the months of the year, with increased consumption, including sporadic heavy drinking occasions, occurring during holidays, festivals, large sports events, and public holidays – such as Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, or the summer holidays. This seasonality in consumption has a harmful, knock-on effect on public health, crime and violence, drink driving and road traffic collisions, suicide and self-harm, and DSGBV.
Recommendations
Reduce population level alcohol consumption
- Reduce whole-of-population alcohol consumption, through controls on pricing, marketing and availability, as a strategy for reducing violence against women – as recommended by the World Health Organization.
Include alcohol in DSGBV strategies
- Ensure alcohol is included in any strategy to reduce DSGBV.
- Adopt clear primary objectives in relation to alcohol regulation and licencing to prevent DSGBV.
- Deliver evidence-based reforms to address availability and access, including regulations on licenced premises density, operating hours, online sales, and advertising.
Tackle problematic drinking
- Implement gender-informed alcohol policy changes that reduce problematic drinking patterns.
- Challenge social norms that trivialise men’s harmful drinking and behaviours.
Co-ordinate across agencies
- Ensure close co-ordination across multiple agencies in relation to services such as addiction, child and family services, domestic and sexual violence supports.
- Work with Cuan, the Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (DSGBV) Agency, and other organisations, on a framework to ensure the development of an integrated and focused effort to address the role of alcohol in DSGBV.
Implement Operation Encompass
- Implement ‘Operation Encompass’, a police-led, school-based early intervention safeguarding scheme to support children and young people who experience domestic abuse, across all schools in Ireland.
Data, training and gender-specific services
- Improve data collection in relation to DSGBV, including recording if the perpetrator used alcohol prior to the crime.
- Ensure training for youth workers and those working in early years services regarding alcohol and DSGBV.
- Secure the rollout of gender specific DSGBV services.
Ban sports sponsorship
- Ban sports sponsorship by alcohol companies.
