Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for their contributions today. It has been interesting. The discussion so far about what the committee and the board will do when it is established has been interesting. It is clear, to my mind, that as set up in the legislation here, it will unfortunately not achieve its aims. It would be good if suggestions from the committee and the witnesses' contributions were taken on board and the legislation was widened to allow it to give a real sense of what the board should be. We will have that discussion further later on. If we have time, I want to ask two specific questions.

A rise in sexual assault among children nationally has been reported, with a 50% increase in victims under the age of 16 in Donegal last year alone. It has been reported that there has been a rise of cases where physical violence accompanies sexual violence and of cases with more than one perpetrator too. Due to the significant rise in cases of victims under the age of 16, the Donegal Rape Crisis Centre reduced the age of those who can access its services to 12. It was only able to do this following a successful funding application to the "Late Late Toy Show", which is reflective enough of what we are talking about here. Has the Rape Crisis Network Ireland seen an increase in cases of children under 16? I think the cases of multiple perpetrators is worrying and scary. What are the Rape Crisis Network Ireland's views on that?