Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. I agree with previous speakers that it could be improved and I hope the Minister of State will be open to taking amendments on Committee Stage.

The first prosecution in this State for human trafficking took place in 2021, with two women given sentences of five years for trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Those sentences were successfully challenged by the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, because of their leniency. Reading some of the press reports provides context to the case. There was dramatic evidence given of the victims' long journey from Nigeria via north Africa and southern Europe before arriving in Ireland. One of them, a 26-year-old mother, said she felt betrayed by the person who trafficked her. She told the counsel she would never have left Nigeria if she knew she was going to end up working as a prostitute in Ireland. The trial heard that the women worked in various locations around the country, including Limerick, Cork, Galway, Castlebar, Navan, Athlone, Letterkenny, Cavan and Dundalk. This shows that whatever supports are in place, they cannot just be available in city locations. It needs to be understood that this exploitation is likely to happen in any part of the country.

The detective who spoke outside the court after the verdict praised the bravery and perseverance of the victims and referred to the very lengthy and complex investigation into the crimes that occurred. It is really important that we see the evidence given at these cases because it will encourage others to come forward. It is also obvious when we hear about lengthy and complex investigations that dealing with this issue requires, in addition to everything else, significant Garda resources. After the DPP challenged the leniency of the sentences in this case and some additional time was added on, the Court of Appeal produced sentencing guidelines on the kinds of sentences that should apply to such crimes, depending on whether there is mitigation.

Sexual exploitation is one form of human trafficking and it is the most prevalent form. Victims may also be trafficked for the purpose of forced marriage, labour exploitation, forced criminal activity or organ removal. A suspected case of trafficking for organ removal was reported for the first time in the State recently. It is horrifying to think that could be happening. Figures from a recent report show that between 2013 and 2022, 55% of victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation and 38% for labour exploitation. More women than men are victims, and children represent 8% of victims in Ireland. This needs to be more widely known about because it will be necessary for people to be vigilant in regard to this kind of crime. It is happening because there are huge amounts of money to be made. The sums of money being talked about are astonishing. There is also a financial cost to this criminal activity, including law enforcement costs and the cost of supports that are needed for people when they have been identified as being trafficked.

Research from Muiread Murphy of Maynooth University points out that the Global Slavery Index for 2018 estimated there were 8,000 victims of human trafficking in Ireland. However, between 2015 and 2019, the Garda identified only 293 adult victims of human trafficking and 25 child victims. It was also identified that the four locations from which victims were most likely to be trafficked were Nigeria, Romania, Albania and Kenya. The identification of victims is really important. It is easy to understand how people who are subject to this kind of crime may be reluctant to come forward. They are in a country they do not know and often do not speak the language. They are being threatened with all sorts of things, including criminal prosecution, by the people who are the perpetrators of this crime against them. The nature of these types of offences means they are often hidden. I am interested to know about the kinds of approaches taken in other jurisdictions to identification of people who are subject to this crime and any ideas we can draw from the experience elsewhere.

I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for the very good Bill digest it has provided. We have had debates on a number of occasions about the tier ranking for Ireland in the annual Trafficking in Persons report. It was a cause of serious concern that in 2021, Ireland and Romania were the only two states on the tier 2 watchlist. Our ranking has improved slightly since then. After being on the tier 2 watchlist in 2020 and 2021, we were assigned to tier 2 in 2022 and 2023 without being on the watchlist. I acknowledge that improvement, for which this legislation is partly responsible.

The 2023 Trafficking in Persons report for Ireland indicates that the Government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. No traffickers were convicted in 2022, which is a decrease compared with the prior year. Nobody has ever been convicted for labour trafficking under the anti-trafficking law. The report pointed to the persistence of "[c]hronic and systemic deficiencies in victim identification, referral, and assistance". It is noted that services for victims "remained inadequate".

The report goes on about overhauling the framework for trafficking. The Minister of State, Deputy Browne, will know from dealing with this legislation and dealing with the issues that we need to do significantly more. This legislation is certainly a step in the right direction.

The approach that has been taken internationally, which is now victim centred, is the correct approach but that does not mean there should not be prosecutions. The very fact there was a prosecution in 2021 drew attention to others. It is very likely to bring about the situation where others are at least concerned about being prosecuted for doing this.

I support the idea of this two-pronged approach, which is the way this is designed. The primary difficulties are noted throughout the respective reports, and in reports by other relevant organisations. They may be summarised as difficulties in proving the constituent elements of an offence of human trafficking, a common problem across jurisdictions. I am sure there is a cross-jurisdictional issue here.

We are also told there is a tendency to prosecute lesser offences, with comparatively minor penalties. The reports of the group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings, GRETA, are critical of this approach as it encourages a sense of impunity in traffickers and is not sufficiently dissuasive.

Frequent difficulties in identifying victims of human trafficking were identified.

Statutory limitation periods are also problematic given there are very lengthy investigations and so on. Trafficking cases often take considerable time to be investigated. Many people will have left the country where the crime has taken place before the case comes to trial. We can see there are a significant number of difficulties.

The national referral mechanism is very welcome. The national referral mechanism provides a way for all agencies, both State and civil society, to co-operate and share information about potential victims, identify those victims and facilitate their access to advice, accommodation and support. One of the things that has been talked about is mixing the people who are in international protection with those who have been trafficked. The situations really need to be separated out because they are not the same thing. There is also the need for appropriate types of accommodation. We are all aware there is a housing crisis but when there is a relatively very small number of people in this kind of situation then the State must identify them as being separate and also deal with them in a separate way.

There is one other aspect that is very clear here. Gardaí in the State enjoy wide support from the community but that is not always the case with people who come from other jurisdictions where they may have an entirely different culture around law enforcement and immigration.

As we go towards dealing with this, not just through An Garda Síochána but also through the trusted partners, the legislation is to be welcomed but the agencies need to be resourced to make sure they have the ability to actually deal with it in a way that is not just about identifying the people and offering some supports: there must be a comprehensive range of supports.

It is very important that Ireland is not seen as a soft location where people can be trafficked. It is important also that we continue to see cases going to court.

Amendments are sought to the Bill. A very good submission was made by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, which suggested a number of amendments they require to be made. The IHREC has said:

We believe the identification assessment threshold has been raised by requiring the application to be ‘credible’ in addition to the assessment of ‘reasonable grounds’, which contravenes the jurisprudence of the Irish courts, the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive, the Council of Europe Directive and the OSCE.

We recommend that the Bill provide for trafficking-specific assistance and supports, separate from the International Protection framework. [I have already mentioned this but IHREC say it is problematic in conflating the two.]

We have also continuously highlighted the need to have equal and unconditional access to assistance for all victims of trafficking, irrespective of their immigration status and nationality. We therefore recommend that the Bill be amended to provide for immigration permissions for presumed and identified victims of trafficking who are third country nationals. [When we are looking at relatively small numbers of people I believe it is absolutely essential that we do this.]

Children are among the most vulnerable victims of trafficking.  We are deeply concerned by the absence of any age-estimation assessment process in the identification and assistance of child victims.  We recommend that the Bill be amended to provide for age-estimation assessments, and that responsibility for these be assigned to an appropriate agency, such as Tusla.

Finally, as traffickers often use the threat of prosecution as a means of control, victims are afraid to come forward. We recommend that the Bill be amended to include a statutory defence for victims of trafficking where they have committed crimes as a direct consequence of them being trafficked.

I am sure there was some consideration of those issues. They were certainly part of the submission. It would be useful in his summing up if the Minister of State addressed those five key areas as identified. The Minister of State might let us know if he is open to taking amendments. I would certainly like to see a number of those in improving this legislation. The Bill is very worthwhile and very necessary. I am glad to see it but I would like to see the resources that will go along with it. There will be resources for the training of gardaí and judges, and then directly with the victims of crime and around the kinds of housing supports and other social protection supports. Very often, if people are going to be within the system when prosecutions are happening with very long investigations, we are looking at those people being in that kind of situation for considerable periods of time. The housing aspect and the separating out the international protection from trafficking are very important in that context.

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