Dr. Cl?ona Saidl?ar:

RCNI welcomes the opportunity to come before the committee to speak about the general scheme of the Bill. We will focus only the sexual offences part. Many of the issues we will highlight have been rehearsed at the Law Reform Commission and in policy papers over the years. We will very much defer to our colleagues in IHREC and other organisations with regard to trafficking.

Head 3 deals with what a jury may have regard to on the question of reasonable belief of a woman's consent with regard to sexual offences. We draw the attention of the committee to subsection (2)(c), on age and maturity. We recommend that it be deleted. There should be no possibility that a boy of 13 or 14 can argue that he was not old or mature enough to know what he was doing and, therefore, is not guilty of rape. Leaving this in would open the door to uncertainty through arguments about how old or mature one would have to be to understand what rape is. Age and maturity are different to mental capacity. We do not believe this is the right place to handle this aspect. The Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, must consent to someone under the age of 14 being charged with a sexual offence. We believe this is a safeguard to protect a child defendant.

Head 5 extends the scope of separate legal representation for complainants. There are a number of aspects we would like to clarify. The RCNI's view is that any notice of intention to seek leave to adduce evidence of other sexual experience should indicate clearly the categories of questions to be asked, the reasons for asking them and the parameters of the questions to be asked. We would add to the text of the Bill "and/or the rationale for seeking to adduce evidence of the complainant's other sexual experience". The phrase "other sexual experience" needs to be further defined more clearly and comprehensively to include references to pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, contraception and other indicia of sexual activity. The prosecutor should have a duty to supply the legal representative for the complainant with a copy of her statements before the application for leave to adduce defence evidence or to questioning in cross-examination. Subsection (7) under head 5 is very welcome.

We also welcome head 6. I do not think I need to say to anyone in this room how traumatic and difficult a case is. It is now well understood. Including sexual assault cases in the protections that already exist for rape is very welcome.

Head 12 includes a definition of "sexual exploitation". We recommend that we line up the wording with the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020 to include what is known as deep faking in the definition. I thank the committee.