This is psychological abuse in an intimate relationship that causes fear of violence, or serious alarm or distress.
New law introduced but how can it be policed? I think it has the potential to enable abusers to exploit the new law e.g. a controlling partner can double down on their abuse and control by threatening to go to the Guards, that they can invent lies about living in fear of their partner. The open ended implications and subjectivity of it has the potential to have abused partners smeared as the perpetrators.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0102/1019886-domestic-violence/