What would a meaningful International Women’s Day look like?

City authorities leading decision-makers and commentators on mandatory tours through the mean, dismal fabric of our maternity hospitals? Media outlets agreeing to ringfence front page space for reports from the family law courts? Guided tours from violently abused women who have navigated those corridors, courtrooms and charged crowds in high tension cases?

It’s an odd coincidence that in 2026, places such as maternity hospitals and the family law courts, where women are most likely to need physical privacy and comfort, are the least likely to provide them. If the conditions in which exhausted women experience the bloody agonising labour of childbirth are secondary to concerns about preserving dilapidated streetscapes, we should probably take a hard look at our priorities.

If the physical fabric of the family law courts fails to offer the sense of safety and separation essential to abuse victims, what contradictory message is being sent to those who are simultaneously being implored to come forward?

Iran: Hundreds of Irish citizens to leave UAE on charter flights; drone strike near US consulate in Dubai

Man who claimed he had consensual sex with student (16) struck off teaching register

Fintan O’Toole: Ireland has spent the last 70 years unsuccessfully trying to dethrone King Cattle

Accountant who shut down free bar at Christmas party awarded €85,000 for unfair dismissal

The planned family law courts complex in Hammond Lane, which has been talked about since 2013, has still to........

© The Irish Times