Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I agree with the Deputy that those figures pose very serious cause for concern. In the equation resulting in such a low rate of trials and convictions in rape cases there are several variables, one of which is the rate of reporting. However, we are dealing here with the difference between reported cases and outcomes. The Deputy should know that in preparing my response to his question, I asked my Department to give me some figures on the rate of reporting of rape cases in Ireland. It struck me that the figures were strange.

Curiously, right across the period from 1995 to 2000, in a comparative study — I can give the Deputy the figures later — Ireland had a very high rate of reporting of rape offences, something shared with Sweden and other countries. Per 100,000 of the population in the relevant period, Ireland averaged approximately 22 or 23 offences, whereas such places as Spain averaged fewer than five. We had between four and five times the reported rate of rape that the Spanish had, and that applies across Europe. It is strange that countries that one might think progressive and advanced share with us a high rate of reporting. I make that point to show that the stereotype that Ireland is a place where people do not report rapes seems not to be borne out by those figures.

However, the Deputy is asking a different question, namely, what happens to cases when they are reported. There are two issues that we should take into account, the first being the question of delay. I have asked the National Crime Council, chaired by Pádraic White, to investigate why things seem to take so long in Ireland compared with the United Kingdom, for example, regarding criminal prosecutions. I met Mr. White recently. He told me he will bring that report to me in the very near future and that they had an interesting analysis of the reason the Irish prosecution system takes longer than others. Delay and the anticipation of a lengthy delay must be a negative as regards victims going ahead with this process.

The second point, and it is one on which the study I have commissioned should be of some assistance to us, is that I do not know whether the Director of Public Prosecutions is operating on the basis of requiring a higher standard of probability of success than that required in the United Kingdom. I am not in a position to tell the Deputy whether that is so, but he is independent and he has to make a decision on whether there is corroborative detail——

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