Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Well done to Deputy O'Callaghan on this important legislation. As Deputy Carroll MacNeill stated, exploitation, including sexual exploitation, takes very many forms and is a spectrum. It was interesting that in Ms Murphy's testimony she said testimony from women previously targeted shows a reluctance of victims to go to An Garda Síochána for various reasons, including a fear they will not be believed. It is important we send a message out from this committee that women - not just women, but mostly women - will be believed. We should encourage them to go to An Garda Síochána. It is a pity no research on that has been carried out in Ireland. It has come up time and again in this committee that the lack of proper statistics compared with what they have in England causes the way we deal with things to fall down in a lot of ways. I reiterate a call for more effort and more funding to be put into that.

I agree with what Threshold said about victim-friendly processes and supporting the victim's journey. That should be done. Unfortunately, many private renters do not report landlords' wrongdoing.

As for RCNI's testimony, the point that stood out, because it tallies with the OPLA's opinion on this, is that we should all work together to ensure first that this legislation gets through, whether or not it has to be amended slightly. It probably does. RCNI's view is that it must be legally robust and workable and that it is important that it be passed as soon as possible.

Having said that, there are concerns in the OPLA advice about drafting, making sure that it is precise and maybe some amendments on the lack of definitions and clarity. There is no point in sending it forward if we know there are likely to be constitutional difficulties with it. Having spoken to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, I think he is open to amendments on that point. There are also some concerns around the penalty clauses where more flexibility could be shown on that.

I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan for his efforts and Ms Murphy for all the work she has done on this. I have spoken to her in the past on it.

The only question I have is for Ms Woods. Given the OPLA report - I do not know if she has had a chance to look at it - has she any specific ideas where definitions could be tightened up or made more precise in order to ensure the Bill's successful passage through the Houses?