TD Josepha Madigan told Dáil of her sex assault ordeal. Picture by Frank McGrath
They are the invisible 15pc. They are the women, for they are overwhelmingly women, who are part of a secret cohort. The violated. They are Irish adults who have been raped.
More than three in 20 Irish people going about their day-to-day lives today have experienced serious sexual violence at some point in their lives, and the vast majority of them have no hope of ever seeing justice served.
Without the prospect of resolution or the closure that comes from a conviction, their suffering must be quietly packed away. A life-changing injury to be borne in silence, a fibrotic scar.