Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is not much evidence of women travelling here independently and the vast majority of the available evidence supports the fact that the process of women being brought into this country and moved from town to town comes from organised criminal gangs. That is the evidence we have about prostitution in Ireland. Many of the women from international locations are not coming here of their own accord, generally speaking. It is part of organised activity.

There are also public policy issues that we must consider, including cultural and attitudinal changes to prostitution. I have already quoted the research from Norway indicating how attitudes have changed and how alterations to legislation have made Norway a less attractive country for prostitution-based trafficking. I accept the points made by Deputies about the differences in trafficking and prostitution, and as Deputy Clare Daly states, some women may be involved independently. There are attitudinal and cultural linkages nonetheless, as well as public policy points to be made on the broader approach.

A recent European Commission report, from which I have already quoted, concluded that the purchase of sexual services approach is extremely helpful in combatting trafficking. It is very important to consider that and it confirms previous conclusions by the European Parliament and Council of Europe. Deputies have quoted the survey from Northern Ireland but politicians there knew about that survey and took the decision to go along the route I am recommending in the legislation.

That was an online survey. I take its reliability for what it is, but I make the point that it was an online survey and one has to be aware of that.

To return to the amendments, my own belief is that women would still come under pressure to claim they were working independently when that was not the case and that gardaí would be limited in the actions they could take to close brothels and disrupt the activities of criminal gangs. I repeat the point that I have made: creating exemptions in the way the Deputy is proposing from existing criminal law would be a clear signal to those who would seek to exploit such exemptions and the opportunity it would present. I do not believe that is a scenario that we should accept.

In terms of reviewing the legislation, I could table an amendment to examine the consequences of this. The Deputy asked about research. Let us remember that there were, as I have said, 800 submissions to the justice committee. There was a huge amount of work done by members of all parties. There was cross-party agreement on the recommendations on the way forward for prostitution. That was a committee of this House with cross-party representation that received almost 30 oral submissions and 800 submissions in total. It produced a carefully-drafted report with a unanimous recommendation from all parties that we should move in this direction.

I absolutely take the point about support services and exit strategies for people who would want to leave the industry. There is a strong lobby by the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland. I know that Deputies have been very heavily lobbied. Perhaps some of the other people who are exploited by this situation do not have such a strong voice. We need to listen and be concerned about other voices that are perhaps somewhat more silent than the lobbying that has been conducted by one particular perspective on this debate. I have no wish to make the situation more dangerous; of course I have not. The evidence from other countries points to the dangers of this industry in the first place and the risks that it poses to all of those involved in it, apart from the criminal gangs that exploit it.