Councillor Kendall, Green Party commented:

"Another year and more women are dead."

"In solidarity, and shared grief, I joined North Down and Ards Women's aid to stand again with our mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, aunts and colleagues, remembering the now 28 women murdered in Northern Ireland since 2020.  In 2025 our Borough's own Sarah Montgomery, mother of two young girls and pregnant with her third child, was murdered at her home in Donaghadee."

"The Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and the Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy 2024-2031 are only words on a page and will not prevent any deaths unless real action is taken to protect women and girls in Northern Ireland.  Each and every women deserves safety, in their home, on the street, in the workplace. We have not done enough."

"We must ensure vital sustained funding goes to Women's Aid, and the many other organisations striving day after day to shelter, protect and support women and girls who experience violence.  Not just physical violence, all forms of violence and abuse.  The staff who support women in our communities risk their own safety to ensure others are safe, they carry the burdens of trauma too. I am truly grateful for the work they do and I thank them.  The effects of abuse and violence rip through our community, through us all."

"It is time to act, to ensure we no longer need to mourn, to hold vigils, to campaign. Across the Executive, and all levels of government we must do more and our actions must be joined up, the funds must go where they are needed most, and we must rehabilitate our culture, only then can we say that women and girls are truly protected."

ENDS