Dr. Cl?ona Saidl?ar:

I thank the committee for its invitation. Rape Crisis Network Ireland is enthusiastic about a dedicated domestic, sexual and gender-based violence agency and its potential transformative impact. We are mindful of the legislation for this agency, which must give it both the scope and specificity to meet expectations to ensure gaps do not open up in expectations, purpose or capacity, such has been our experience with the previous transition to the Child and Family Agency. I will focus on two key points in this regard but I am also happy to speak more broadly.

The first is the nature of the agency. We welcome, as some of my colleagues have touched on already, that this Bill recognises the need for the Minister for Justice and the whole of government to remain responsible for and active in policy and progress in the area of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. However, we see risks in this Bill in how the functions and powers of this agency may be shaped and confined, such as to make this legislative process effectively meaningless. There are critical points at which the Minister directs the agency and the board’s business throughout the Bill, under heads 15, 27, 28 and 29, which some already referenced. While many of these provisions are sound and practical, we wonder what strategic role the agency and board have, if any. As currently constructed, the board appears confined to oversight, control and accountability of good governance. If the board has little or no strategic role, the agency cannot be said to have a policy leadership role or independence. At the other end of the spectrum are the relationship and functions of the agency vis-à-visthe domestic, sexual and gender-based violence sector, in which it is possible to interpret the same utilitarianism. In our written submission, we raised concerns about the language used in head 14(1), as did many others, around service providers. We are concerned that the Bill does not explicitly recognise the broad work of any service provider beyond direct instances of measurable service provision. These other functions include listening, learning and engaging in order to evidence and effect change; in short, any organisation’s advocacy and agency. In between is how the agency develops and leads on policy. We suggest consideration of a re-balancing throughout the Bill to recognise and protect agency appropriately.

Second, I wish to talk about head 5 on public service information sharing. This does not appear to offer any addition to the existing data protection law, which should be of concern. It appears that this head has attempted to solve a problem that it does not specify, notwithstanding reference to head 4. We are aware that barriers to timely and in-depth cooperation based on real or perceived limitations in powers to share information can often frustrate insight, progress and implementation. Head 5(1) is great but is effectively powerless in terms of expediting these points of negotiation across government. Bearing in mind that many of these limitations exist for the protection of survivors’ rights, upholding of their safety and dignity and indeed, at times, their protection from the State itself, if there are specific information-sharing requirements for the agency’s functions, which there may well be, they should be stated specifically and transparently and be subject to scrutiny before passing into law.