Ms Caoilfhionn Gallagher:

I will run through the various topics. On the first one, in respect of my role, my predecessor, Professor Conor O'Mahony, followed Judge Geoffrey Shannon as he now is. He highlighted in his annual report, published in December of last year, the importance of this role. It is a credit to Ireland that in 2006 this role of Special Rapporteur on Child Protection was established. I think that was a positive and progressive move, but the Deputy is quite right to raise the question about the remit. Every single day I get queries about individual cases which are really questions for the Ombudsman for Children rather than for the rapporteur. The idea with the special rapporteur role is to have a very particular, distinctly legal, perspective looking at how, overall, Ireland is meeting its legal obligations in respect of child protection. It is also focused on child protection rather than child rights more generally, in the way that the Ombudsman is. That allows me to do a more detailed in-depth review, from a legal perspective in particular, on the way in which we are meeting our obligations internationally in relation to child protection. I do have an obligation to report annually and my report ultimately means that I am then responsible and answerable to the Oireachtas. Ordinarily, the annual reports are published to cover the first year of your work and then they are published about six months after that. Professor Conor O'Mahony stopped his role at the end of June 2022. From July 2022 until 1 February 2023, there was no one in role. That was a very important seven months. It was, of course, when the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child published its concluding observations and heard from stakeholders in Geneva on child rights issues. A series of things also happened over that time, including, for example, An Taoiseach announcing the new child poverty unit. An Coimisiún na Meán and a whole range of other topics came up during that period. I have taken the view, and I hope the committee will support me in this, that waiting and doing my first annual report in summer 2024 would be too slow and not responsible. My view is that my first report should be done faster and it should be essentially a stocktaking exercise. It should include that period when no one was in post, it should look at how Ireland is currently doing against that yardstick set by the UN committee and make clear what I expect, as special rapporteur, of the Government. In a year's time we can come back and see how they are doing against that yardstick. Those are my thoughts on that.

With regard to human trafficking and child trafficking, one of the best sources of information is the US State Department report. Ireland has been languishing rather low in the league table of how states do in respect of human trafficking for some years in the US State Department's analysis. While it has improved, it remains at tier 2 in the 2023 TIP report. Ireland has a long way to go to meet international standards in respect of human trafficking. While it is estimated that there is an under-reporting and an under-identification of victims of trafficking and it is likely that the true number of trafficking victims is, at a minimum, 38% higher than the official statistics suggest and maybe even higher than that, my particular concern from a child protection aspect is that it is quite clear, in regard to child trafficking, that we have a disproportionate problem and that we are seeing even less of it. I have spoken to some individual professionals who, when they saw those figures, said that they are individually aware of more cases than that. One of the issues is that the particular focus on trafficking appears to be, although we do not have the precise data to see if it is correct, solely looking at factors concerning trafficking into Ireland from abroad. One of the key issues relates to trafficking within Ireland and a range of other types of trafficking, not just sexual exploitation. That also includes, for example, criminal exploitation, the use of children in gangs and a range of other types of trafficking, including domestic servitude of children. It seems to me that the figures suggest that we are child-blind and are not seeing the full picture. The information we have also suggests that we have a skewed focus and we are not looking at the entirety of the picture. That is something that I hope I can contribute to.

The Deputy is quite right to raise the fact that there have been a number of positive developments. Of course, I welcome the publication of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Bill 2023 and the fact that there is some progress and movement, but there are still very significant gaps in the protection and care of victims. I hope that in my role I can feed into that.

I am looking at the list of other topics that the Deputy raised. I apologise that I may have left something out. Is there something else the Deputy needed me to address?