Survivors call on women to join marches this Sunday for International Women’s Day
The images symbolised who they were before suffering abuse.
This action is inspired by and in solidarity with the Epstein survivors.
The women are calling on people to join International Women’s Day marches across the island. The will be marching ‘for her’, their younger selves.
Many of these survivors have had their private therapy notes accessed by their abusers’ defence teams.
Last month, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) urged the Justice Minister, Jim O’Callaghan, to introduce a presumption against the disclosure of counselling notes in sexual offence trials.
In January, therapists and survivors handed in bags of shredded counselling notes to the Department of Justice, describing changes in legislation as “patronising”.
Paula Doyle, who has previously spoken of the trauma of having her counselling notes shared in court, said: “Jim O’Callaghan could start to listen. The changes he’s talking about bringing in – where he’s saying only under extreme circumstances will counselling notes be looked at, isn’t good enough.”
Paula Doyle from Blanchardstown, told how her counselling notes were used ‘to belittle me’. Photo: Collins
Ms Doyle, from Dublin, was raped by her friend’s husband in 2019. In 2024 Aidan Kestell (55) of Briarswood Lawn in Dublin 15, was convicted and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years.
“My counselling notes were taken and used by the defence, not to help the alleged perpetrator at the time. They were used to belittle me as a mother, as a partner and as a woman. They weren’t used as evidence, absolutely not,” she said.
“In my case, the prosecution didn’t talk about my PTSD, my nightmares, my flashbacks. They didn’t talk about anything like that.
“The defence used the notes. And it’s absolutely, it’s so horrendous and dangerous and it’s actually causing victims psychological harm.”
You know, her innocence, her naivety, and I still blame her sometimes
While the women held old photos of themselves, Ms Doyle said she often preferred not to see her old self. “Because when I look at her I get very upset because she didn’t know what was coming. You know, her innocence, her naivety, and I still blame her sometimes,” she said.
She added that even though she knew it wasn’t her fault, “victims blame themselves all the time. Like, If I hadn’t have walked home that way, if I had a thought harder, if I had a scream louder. You’re going to blame yourself all the time. That’s just part of what happens when you are a victim,” she said.
“There are still people out there that haven’t been able to tell one person … If you can just tell a friend, someone close to you, you’re not alone anymore, you’ve told that one person.”
Fellow campaigner Hazel Behan was raped in her apartment in Praia da Rocha in Portugal in 2004. Convicted rapist and sex offender, Christian Brueckner – suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann – was acquitted by a German court in 2024.
In September 2025, Brueckner was released from prison in Germany. He’d been serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of an elderly woman in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Ms Behan criticised Mr O’Callaghan over the issue of private therapy notes being shared in court cases. She said he had “neglected to take on board the sheer psychological harm and re-traumatisation that happens to a victim”.
Ms Behan, from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, added: “I’m unsure of where Jim O’Callaghan is coming from. But we’ll continue. We’re operating on behalf of so many people silenced for so long. We’re not ready to give up on that.”
Looking down at her photograph she was carrying, she said: “I march for the 20-year-old me whose life was taken from them and I march for her because she deserves a voice.”
The women are also angry at the fact that Taoiseach Michéal Martin’s planned St Patrick’s Day trip to the White House is set to go ahead.
Donald Trump’s name appeared numerous times in the Epstein files. Being mentioned in the files does not mean someone is guilty of an offence or wrongdoing.
Ms Behan called on Mr Martin to cancel the high-profile visit.
She claimed the visit is “harmful,” – in that it “sends a message to all people like me to all victims and survivors of rape, sexual and gender based violence across the country – that we don’t matter; that money and power matters more and I find that disgusting.”
“Michéal Martin visiting Trump to pass over the shamrock on Paddy’s Day is disgraceful,” Ms Behan told the Irish Independent.
Ms Doyle said: “Why would Michéal Martin want to shake hands with [Trump]? There’s so many countries he could visit who would embrace Ireland and where Ireland would embrace other cultures. There’s no need to go over there.”
The Irish Independent contacted the Department of An Taoiseach and the Department of Justice for comment.
Fellow survivors stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ms Doyle and Ms Behan. Clodagh Malone, a survivor of St Patrick’s mother and baby home, joined the women.
People Before Profit-Solidarity TD, Ruth Coppinger also attended, along Rosa Socialist Feminist Movement representatives, who are organising the Dublin march.
Marches take place on Sunday, March 8 at 1pm from City Hall, Dublin to the Dáil; at 1pm on Bedford Row, Limerick city; at 2.30pm on Grand Parade, Cork city and 12.30pm at Eyre Square, Galway – an event organised by Feminist Cafe.
If you have been affected by issues in this article, call the Rape Crisis Centre on Freephone 1800 77 88 88
