Ms Monica O'Connor:

It was a highly regarded commission of inquiry that was led by a Supreme Court judge. Here in Ireland I would not put myself in the same situation of criticising the rigour of a report because it would be unfair. One of the criticisms has been that the starting point adopted by the Swedes was that they would not repeal the legislation. That is a complete misunderstanding of a commission of inquiry which is similar to our own. For example, if we had a commission of inquiry on rape or marital rape legislation then our purpose would be to find out how effective or ineffective the legislation is and whether it could be improved with regard to attrition or conviction rates, not whether to repeal it.

The recommendations in Anna Skarhed's report are mostly about how to improve and enhance the legislation in, for example, convictions. The criticism led me to think that people did not understand that the commission of inquiry had such a purpose in the first place.