Ms Noeline Blackwell:

I will be brief on this but Ms Scott could tell members this is a hobby horse of mine. To be clear, counselling notes are only ever introduced if the defence wants them. Often medical records are brought to court but it is only in sexual offence trials that they are brought in to discredit a prosecution witness. This is the only time they are every used. Therefore, this is a great opportunity for us. The Citizens' Assembly did not like them. It has crept in over 30 or 40 years as an extra tool to discredit witnesses, principally women, in sexual offence trials. This is its only purpose.

The difficulty with the 2017 Act is that it assumes we can have a reasonable discussion about this in the course of a trial, or at least at the start of a trial. This is not the case. As many survivors have said, most recently in Sarah Grace's recently published book Ash + Salt, they are asked by the investigating gardaí or the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, to make a decision about releasing their counselling notes. This is because they need to know in advance of the trial whether these notes might in some way contradict or cast any aspersion or doubt whatsoever on the statement the witness made to the gardaí. This is only in sex offence trials. It is a discrediting method. It is done in absolute ignorance of the therapy process, the need to heal and the impact of trauma on memory and people's recognition. We would be very pleased if the committee were to pull it away. It is not done elsewhere. Deputy Clarke is right. It is deeply traumatic. It can impact on healing and survivors tell us it does so.