Mr. Justin Kelly:

Several elements of prosecutions have been touched upon. We have special measures for court cases and the investigating gardaí, prosecution counsel and the DPP discuss these before any case comes to trial. These special measures involve screening, the use of videos, intermediaries and whatever can be done to help the child through the process.

With regard to prosecution rates, it is important to emphasise that one of the key points of the Barnahus project is the child's best interests, with regard to preventing undue delays and avoiding retraumatisation. Coming from the policing point of view, we want to see an increased level of prosecutions. The child's best interests is the primary part of the Barnahus project. Everybody knows about the low rates of prosecution for sexual crime generally and not just sexual crime involving children. There are multifaceted reasons for this and I am sure the Cathaoirleach knows many of them. An Garda Síochána is very well able to give statistics on cases that have proceeded, prosecution rates and conviction rates. We have started to do outcomes-based reporting and we are now digging into the reasons there are no prosecutions at scale. We started this in Galway. It is a very interesting project for us to get a better understanding of why prosecutions do not go ahead. The reasons for this are not just with An Garda Síochána but across the entire criminal justice system.