Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 23:

In page 10, after line 40, to insert the following:“(6) Where a member of the Garda Síochána or the Ombudsman Commission makes a request referred to in subsection (5) a victim shall be given reasonable opportunity to make alternative arrangements for accompaniment, where the substitution of an individual by another suitable person would answer the concerns of the member of the Garda Síochána or the Ombudsman Commission.”.

There is a reason I withdrew the last amendment. It was in the hope that the Minister of State would look at this amendment. It is important that if one looks at section 6(4) which states: "a victim may be accompanied by a person or persons of his or her choice, including his or her legal representative, when contacting the Garda Síochána or the Ombudsman Commission for the first time in respect of an alleged offence" one then goes forward to section 6(5) which states: "Where a member of the Garda Síochána or an officer of the Ombudsman Commission, as the case may be, reasonably believes that the presence of a person referred to in subsection (4), including a legal representative, would be contrary to the best interests of the victim or would prejudice any investigation or criminal proceedings regarding the alleged offence, the member of the Garda Síochána or officer of the Ombudsman Commission, as the case may be, may require that the person absent himself or herself prior to the member or officer concerned engaging further with the victim."

We ask the Minister of State to include the additional section proposed by our amendment which states that where that does happen, and where a member of An Garda Síochána or the Ombudsman Commission makes a request as referred to in section 6(5), that a victim would be given reasonable opportunity to make alternative arrangements for somebody to accompany him or her, where the substitution of the individual by another suitable person would answer the concerns of the member of the Garda Síochána or the commission. That is important because if somebody goes to make a complaint and, for whatever reason, the garda or the officer of the commission decides that an accompanying person should absent himself or herself in the best interests of the victim, the victim should be given an opportunity to seek somebody else to accompany him or her in making that complaint.

We wish to include this section to make it very clear that if that does happen the victim would be given reasonable opportunity to make such an alternative arrangement. That follows through to amendments Nos. 64 and 75. It follows through the sections of the Bill.