Michael McDowell (Independent)
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I compliment Deputy Cian O'Callaghan on bringing forward this legislation and pay tribute to the Department of Justice for having an open mind as to whether it would go with it or do something else. I might put a few points before the committee for consideration. What we are dealing with is, clearly, a first cousin of prostitution and pimping, whereby somebody is induced to provide sexual services by being offered some consideration in exchange. Other types of offences that could also be closely related to this, such as the seeking of sexual favours in exchange for offering employment or a Harvey Weinstein situation whereby sexual favours are sought in exchange for recruitment, the offering of a contract or other things like that. Whichever choice the Department makes, there is something to be said for widening the concept of prostitution to cover what I call the first cousin of prostitution and pimping, namely, what we are dealing with here.

I fully agree with Deputy Carroll MacNeill in that proving this is going to be very difficult. Unless there are, say, text messages or a printed advertisement, it will be practically impossible to prove it because the offer will have been during an oral conversation, by innuendo or something like that. Nevertheless, the fact it is difficult to prove does not mean it should be legal or that there should be no consequence to doing it. As an example, if a male were to suggest to a female that she move in with him into his gaff and share his rent, while it may be clear from the circumstance that there is to be a sexual dimension to her moving in and that she will have to pay a portion of the rent in shared accommodation or whatever, it may not be so easy to prove. It is essential, therefore, that the language of the legislation be very clear as to what it will or will not catch. For instance, in Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's brave effort to work out who such an offender could be, the Bill refers to providers of accommodation or employees, agents or contractors of a provider, but in a lot of cases involving house-sharing, it will be very difficult to work out who is or is not a sharer and what his or her status is. That is something we will have to bear in mind. In England, there was recently a successful prosecution for incitement to prostitution, based on the English definition. It was the case of a 53-year-old man who had made very explicit demands of a prospective tenant.

I am in two minds, like the Department of Justice, as to which is the correct way to go but I am equally convinced, as has been noted by others, that something should be done reasonably urgently about this, one way or the other. I appreciate the Department is looking at the measures that were taken recently to make prostitutes immune from prosecution but the customer liable to be prosecuted. I would love to see the Department take a simple step and carry out a survey on the extent of prostitution in Ireland. Unless I have a very prurient imagination, it seems a high number of odd-looking massage establishments are cropping up everywhere. Unless there is very high demand for massage, I think prostitution is much more widespread now and that it is going under the flag of massage much more often than it used to.

I return to my main point. Whatever language is put into the legislation has to be sufficient to capture me-too situations where people are asked to provide sex for a job or other things. It should be in the context of revising the concept of prostitution and bringing in this cognate, first cousin of prostitution, whereby the concept of consideration can cover situations like this. We cannot just long-finger it. We cannot just say that because it is complicated, we should do nothing. Clearly, the most vulnerable people are being exposed to this demand now. Moreover, the Bill should extend to lodgers, given many people are now sharing homes on the tax-free lodger system and that must be wide open to the issue.

I reiterate my congratulations to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan on taking the initiative in bringing the Bill before us.

It requires careful but nonetheless urgent work in order to make it effective.