Mayo campaigner meets Minister for Justice to highlight survivors' recovery journey
Castlebar advocate Ciara Mangan, founder of Beyond Surviving, has met with the Minister for Justice to highlight the critical gaps in support for survivors of sexual violence in Ireland.
Mangan, who has become one of Ireland's most prominent voices on the rights of survivors of sexual violence, attended the meeting alongside key board members of Beyond Surviving, including Lisa Fallon, Leyla Simsek, and Sarah Grace.
The meeting centred on the work of Beyond Surviving, a charity founded by Ciara Mangan that provides continuity of support for victims and survivors after crisis intervention ends.
"We're filling a really important gap in the survivors' recovery journey," Mangan said. "We're healing from these crimes for quite often the rest of our lives, but support simply just stops at a certain point."
The Castlebar advocate said the meeting was an opportunity to help the minister understand the full landscape of survivor experience. "Our role is always just to represent the broad diversity of lived experiences, and it's not a uniform kind of experience, so what we could bring to the minister's attention in future reforms is just to help him understand the diversity of perspectives and experiences that survivors have — and helping him then shape any legislation with that in mind."
Mangan also used the meeting to make the case for Ireland to become a model for other nations in how it cares for survivors. "We highlighted to the minister how this is a real opportunity to really strengthen the whole system, and set an example, I suppose, for other countries as well, in strengthening the provision of care for survivors. I was really pleased with the meeting."
Beyond Surviving's focus, she explained, is deliberately future-oriented — working alongside the existing frontline sector rather than duplicating it. "The frontline services do a very vital role in the crisis intervention piece, but Beyond Surviving is that next step after those services end."
The Minister for Justice posted that he was extremely pleased to meet with Ciara Mangan, Lisa Fallon, Leyla Simsek & Sarah Grace of Beyond Surviving with his party colleague Shane Moynihan.
“We had a very constructive and insightful meeting and I want to commend Ciara and her team of volunteers and Board members for the vital work they do supporting survivors of domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence and abuse”, The Minister for Justice wrote.
The meeting comes on the back of a busy period for Mangan, who earlier this year welcomed the Government's approval of new legislation significantly restricting the use of counselling notes in sexual violence trials. Under the new law, such records will only be permitted as evidence where a judge determines there is a genuine risk of an unfair trial — a change Mangan had strongly campaigned for.
Her advocacy on the issue reached an international stage last June, when she was part of an Irish delegation at the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, where she used her address to call for exactly this change in Irish law.
Mangan was also recently shortlisted for the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award at the Image Businesswoman Awards — a recognition she received with characteristic humility.
"It was a really, really great honour just to even be nominated and shortlisted," she said. "I was really happy to see Therese Coveney win in my category. She set up Together Academy, supporting those with Down syndrome into training and entering the workforce. It was a really great experience and I was just glad to be shortlisted — so we'll try again next year."
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme