Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of observations and just one question. I congratulate Deputy O'Callaghan on this piece of work. It is important the committee has been able to provide further scrutiny of it.

Sex without consent is clearly rape. Consent cannot be coerced. Consent cannot be purchased lawfully. Consent cannot be transacted. Consent is consent; it is freely given. The nature of this, however, is whether a person will be believed. I am very glad Ms Murphy referred to that. The nature of sexual exploitation is very rarely what we perceive as being directly violent and very rarely involves a stranger. The vast bulk of sexual exploitation or abuse, as we know, is committed by somebody known to the victim. It goes beyond agreed boundaries. It is nuanced. It is delicate. It is practically always a surprise, practically always in the moment and practically always something that - and this is very important - creates doubt in the mind of the victim and a sense of surprise along the lines of "Did that really just happen?", or more specifically "Did I really just get asked that question?", or "Did that physically just happen?", or "Am I actually in this situation?". There is always that moment of creating doubt. The question of whether they will be believed is one all victims of sexual abuse and exploitation ask themselves. That is particularly important when it comes to this issue. It is already incredibly difficult to get a successful prosecution for any sexual offence. It is already very difficult to reach the evidential standard relative to the number of offences we know are committed and the range of experiences of women in particular.

What is the Department's thinking on the evidential standard for this offence? How does that compare with the other forms of sexual exploitation and efforts to purchase sex, which we know we are having difficulties with? One thing I will draw to the attention of the committee is the group established by the National Women's Council called Beyond Exploitation. Beyond Exploitation is run principally by the National Women's Council and Ruhama but is also linked in carefully with Dr. Ruth Breslin, who works in the sexual exploitation research programme in the Geary Institute of UCD. These are serious programmes to highlight the nature of the difficulty of people forced by coercion or circumstance to sell sex. This is especially the case with trafficked and vulnerable women.

I appreciate I have very little time, but that is my question to the Department as to how it thinks this offence will be proved if we get it into legislation, which I firmly believe we will.