Anne Ferris (Wicklow, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This committee has done a lot of work on domestic and sexual violence, generally dealing with adults. We have not done a lot of work relating to children because the Joint Committee on Health and Children deals with that area. It is all very interesting but, as Ms McDonald said, it is an EU directive and it is vital we ensure our law is tight enough and does not fall short of the directive. I agree with Mr. Counihan about secondary victims. I am sure secondary victims do not feel they are indirect victims but that they are victims, even though they may not have been abused themselves. They feel it emotionally and psychologically.

I was interested to hear the piece on restorative justice. The Chairman and I have done a lot of work on this over the past few years, mainly relating to perpetrators rather than victims. It was good to hear that point referred to in the presentation. I intend to go into all the statements again and to go through the Bill head by head to see what can be done. I have a Private Members' Bill on sentencing in the lottery system and I hope it gets chosen for debate in the next few months. It deals with the anomaly in sentencing with regard to damage to a person vis-à-visdamage to a property. The sentence for damage to a person's property can be far greater than that for damage to a person himself or herself. For example, if a person picked up a bottle and hit somebody over the head with it he or she could get a bigger sentence for damaging the bottle than for injuring the other person.

I do not have a question as those I had have been answered and the witnesses have given a lot of clarification. I thank them very much.