Mr. Tom O'Malley:

Ideally, we need a comprehensive review of sexual offences generally within the country. Most of the legislation we now have resulted from recommendations made by the Law Reform Commission in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was very good legislation in its day and some of it still is.

It has become something of a patchwork. That is one area in which people deserve clarity and consistency in the legislation. We have reason to believe there is an overall review of this area going on in the Department of Justice and Equality. There are certain gaps in the sexual offences area, particularly for those against children. For example, we still do not have an offence of child sexual abuse. When there is an allegation of sexual abuse, the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, has to rely on certain specific offences like rape, sexual assault or incest. Sometimes there can be gaps in these areas. We need to identify the gaps. There are certain offences under the Children Act which fill in these gaps.

There is also the whole area of trial procedures and how children should be dealt with when they are appearing as witnesses. This is an area in which there has been a significant amount of research and developments by psychologists and those who work in the field of child care. These have given tremendous insights into the kind of issues that arise, for example, what is the best way to question a child to elicit the truth.