Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I will come back in on a few of the points the Minister has made. I was very much involved in the debate on the reconfiguration of the divisions. In fact, I remember the Garda Commissioner sitting in the seat the Minister is sitting in today as we teased out these issues. We were all assured that the reconfiguration of An Garda Síochána was to improve policing. This afternoon, the Minister is giving us a practical example of where it is not helping policing, helping victims or protecting local communities. She is saying that, under the reconfiguration, we will not have any district headquarters any more. It is very easy to change the amendment to read "local Garda station" because I presume there will still be local Garda stations after this reconfiguration is completed. With all due respect, the Minister is playing with words in respect of my amendment. She knows the thrust of it. In fairness, it is not me who is putting it down. Members of An Garda Síochána, who have been implementing this register for decades, have come forward and said that it is not practical and that, if they are going to be able to monitor these individuals, they need them to present in person at the local Garda station rather than in Castlebar, 40 or 50 miles away. The difficulty is that, as result of the way in which the legislation is written, those on the register can notify any divisional headquarters in the country and thereby comply with the law. That is not good enough. We want these people to have to present in person to issue the notification in their local Garda station. I ask the Minister to reflect on the amendment put forward in a genuine effort to deal with specific concerns gardaí have raised regarding the implementation of this legislation.

On the issue regarding the parole board, what I am saying is that applications should not be accepted by the parole board unless people have availed of treatment. I will not press the issue today but I ask the Minister to reflect on the intention behind this amendment before we deal with it on Report Stage. I accept that people cannot be forced to avail of treatment. It is very clear that they are not doing it at the moment because only one in eight sex offenders is prepared to avail of treatment while in prison. There is something fundamentally wrong with the system at the moment. The Minister's report, which was published back in 2009 and which this legislation is based on, specifically states that an incentive needs to be put in place. If it is not to be access to the parole board, the Minister should come forward with some incentive on Report Stage. I am only asking that she reflect the recommendations in her own report, which include a recommendation that an incentive be put in place because the system is not working at the moment. If the treatment is as effective as the Prison Service says it is - and it says that people who avail of treatment are three and a half times less likely to reoffend - why are we not putting some sort of incentive in place to ensure this treatment is taken up?

My final point relates to compliance with the right to be forgotten under the GDPR. Under a very strict interpretation, the Minister is correct in what she is saying. There is absolutely nothing to impede us, as a member state of the European Union, from going further in this regard. I am not asking that we go further, however. All I am asking is that the law as set out at European Union level be enforced and implemented here in Ireland by the technology companies based here. As a jurisdiction, we are turning a blind eye to the approach being taken at present, which effectively abuses victims again. These people have been put under great pressure to waive their anonymity so that the offenders can be named. With the stroke of a pen, the technology companies are airbrushing their stories away. That cannot be allowed to happen. If we are genuine and serious about acknowledging the hurt that has been caused and ensuring that those victims are not abused again, we need to ensure that the EU regulation is enforced in principle and verbatim, which is not happening. We need something else here.

I submitted these amendments at the end of last year so the Department has had a full four months to consider them. I am surprised that no positive suggestion has been made as to how to address this particular problem. It was flagged when I raised this issue with the Minister on the floor of the House on Second Stage. It is just not good enough to say that we will look at it. We need some practical measures. It has taken us 13 years to get this legislation in place. The victims cannot wait another 13 years for this particular provision to be enforced by the technology companies that come under our jurisdiction and which are regulated here in Ireland.