Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 79:

In page 18, to delete lines 6 to 10 and substitute the following:“(5) Where a victim of an alleged offence has been assessed under section 14 and the investigating authority has identified specific protection needs in relation to the victim, the presiding judge shall be provided with a copy of the report by the investigating authority. The investigating authority, Director of Public Prosecutions, or the presiding judge, as the case may be, shall, when considering whether the victim would benefit from special measures during the course of any criminal proceedings relating to the alleged offence, have regard to the fact that specific protection needs have been identified under section 14 in relation to the victim concerned.”.

This involves letting judges know about special protection needs. Section 14 provides for an assessment of a victim's special protection needs to be carried out and for that report to be compiled. The amendment is saying that report should be provided to the presiding judge in the victim's case and the judge, along with the investigators and the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, shall have regard to the special protection needs identified under section 14 during the course of the proceedings. The reason for this is to assess whether the person has any special needs in the conduct of the court case. The treatment of some victims of sexual violence in particular and how they have been dealt with in the courts has been a talking point because it has been incredibly problematic for people who have been re-traumatised by their treatment in court. There should be no excuse for the judge not knowing how vulnerable a person is. That should not in any way undermine the trial. It does not invalidate the rights of the accused or anything like that. It is just a matter of being aware of their vulnerability. I feel quite strongly about this because judges' mishandling of cases of sexual violence have been well documented in the media and in some instances this has been arguably almost worse than the original offence.

Amendment No. 114 is similar to Deputy O'Callaghan's and Deputy O'Brien's amendments in this area. It is pretty self-explanatory. It proposes that victims of domestic or sexual crime can be accompanied by a support worker unless the court orders otherwise. That is critical because they go through the legal process alone at a time when they are vulnerable.