A woman living “in fear” due to alleged abusive behaviour by a neighbouring family and an incident involving a jar containing what “looked like semen” left outside her door got a civil restraining order against them.“It’s been a nightmare living next door to them,” the woman told Judge Monika Leech at Dublin District Court when applying for the five-year order restraining violent and/or abusive behaviour and/or harassment. In a separate case, another woman got a similar order against a man whom her employer has barred from her workplace over allegedly consistently following and harassing her.She did not know him and feared for her safety and that of her child because he kept trying to contact her, telling her he heard voices saying he “has to be with me”, she said.She was fearful he would find out where she lived and so afraid she took different routes to work, she said. “I’m afraid of him, I don’t want him near me.” The man did not attend court but Leech was satisfied he had been served with the applicationShe found this stalking and harassment had a “serious impact” on the woman and was satisfied her application met the legal threshold for a restraining order under the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2023, in operation since autumn 2024 and introduced to prevent stalking.Some 1,839 orders were granted under the Act in 2025, the first full year of its operation. Breach of the orders is a criminal offence attracting a fine and/or a maximum prison term of one year.Applications are heard in camera and have added considerably to the already busy workload of the District Courts, particularly in Dublin, where two full court days are assigned weekly to deal with them. Legal sources say many applications concern disputes within families or between neighbours rather than stalking.At the initial call over of 13 listed cases during a recent hearing, Leech was told many were likely to take at least 45 minutes.The judge stressed to the parties she had “no intention of going beyond the true purpose” of the legislation, which is “to prevent stalking and all forms of sexual and gender-based violence regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator”.Warning that applicants who failed to get an order would be liable for costs, she asked those “who may be able to compromise” to consider whether an agreed undertaking, rather than an order, was appropriate in their cases.In a contested application heard over almost two hours, a woman sought a restraining order against a neighbouring family – a woman aged in her 70s and her adult son and daughter.The applicant told the judge she believed the man was behind an incident where a jar containing “what looked like semen” was left outside her door. In another incident, a green liquid, possibly lighter fluid, was splashed outside her door and landing. One morning, when bringing her young son to school, she heard the man behind his slightly ajar door making sexual noises, she said.His mother accused her [applicant] of using drugs and threatened to “blow my head off” and all three respondents were verbally abusive towards her including in front of her son, she said. “I’ve never used drugs in my life,” she said. She and her son were “terrified”, he would not sleep alone and the situation was so bad she was seeking to move house, she said.Tusla contacted her saying it had received an anonymous call it considered “malicious” from a person who said they were a neighbour concerned for the welfare of her son, she said. In evidence, all three respondents denied the claims. The man repeatedly replied “untrue” and “no comment” in replies to the woman’s counsel. Asked why the family had left a previous address about two years earlier, the daughter said that was a “personal” matter.In her ruling, the judge found the applicant’s evidence was credible and reliable and there was a basis for her claim of harassment by the respondents.The evidence of all three was “unhelpful” and “unreliable”, said Leech. The man was “entirely unhelpful”, his attitude to the court was “entirely disrespectful” and he and his sister both “obfuscated”. The combined weight of the respondents’ “belligerence and obfuscation” destroyed their credibility as witnesses and their response to the allegations, she held. While not making findings relating to the evidence about the jar and liquid, the judge said she was satisfied there was a consistent pattern of behaviour by them and the applicant “is distressed in the extreme” over their attitude. When Leech granted a five-year restraining order as “necessary and proportionate”, the applicant wiped away tears. The judge awarded her €3,000 legal costs against the respondents after taking into consideration they are social welfare recipients.In another application, a woman got an interim restraining order against her boyfriend’s ex-wife. She said, due to the respondent’s abusive behaviour and communications to her over a two-year period, including “following and harassing me”, she did not feel safe going home, to her work or gym. She left one job over this but the respondent found her new workplace and had insulted and harassed her there, she said.Denying the claims, the respondent said the applicant was the cause of incidents that led to the break-up of her marriage and she has blocked the applicant on social media. When she was in the applicant’s workplace, a cafe, the applicant “body-shamed me”, she said.Granting an interim restraining order pending a full hearing, the judge said she believed the applicant’s daily life was affected by the alleged behaviour and the interim order was necessary and proportionate to protect her safety and welfare. That was no indication a final order would be made, she added.Several applications were finalised via undertakings, including one where a grandmother undertook not to post messages on social media about her son’s ex partner, the mother of his child. Another undertaking arose from a breakdown in the relationship between a man and an accountant. The client undertook not to communicate with the accountant, or the latter’s family, or arrive at their home, for five years. In a separate recent hearing of civil restraining order applications before Judge Shalom Binchy, a woman said she has moved out of her apartment because of threats received from neighbours. She sought legal aid for her application for orders against two women and a man but was told by the Legal Aid Board on July 6th last the waiting time for a first appointment was 38 weeks.One respondent said she was awaiting psychiatric evaluation, was “not well at all” and had “severe trauma”. She initially sought an adjournment over her health issues but then told the judge she wanted the case to proceed. “I so need to get out what she [applicant] has done to me,” she said.Observing there was “no indication” the respondents would give interim undertakings pending a full hearing, the judge adjourned the matter to October but asked the applicant to urge the Legal Aid Board to give the case some priority. She said 38 weeks was “too long” especially because the applicant could not live at home in the interim.In a different application, a woman with a history of mental health difficulties sought an order against her sister, saying she received “more empathy from strangers than from my sister”. She believed certain anonymous social media postings were by her sister “playing mind games with me”, causing her upset and stress. The respondent sister denied any association with the posts. Her counsel said undated screenshots of posts exhibited were not evidence and the posts themselves were not threatening.In finding the respondent had no case to answer, Binchy said there was no evidence the posts were from her, they were not numerous and none would amount to threatening or violent conduct. It was “very sad”, the judge said, “to see a case where two sisters resort to the courts to try and resolve personal issues”. Both have suffered “significant tragedy” in their lives and experienced a recent parental bereavement, she noted. Having been told the respondent was not seeking her costs, the judge made no costs order, meaning each side pays their own. Wishing both women well, she hoped “sisterly relations might improve” in the future.