Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Yes. I am not in a position, without putting myself in the DPP's chair, to inform the Deputy of the reason those cases did not go ahead. Obviously, in some cases, the alleged victim says she does not want to proceed with it. In other cases, presumably, the DPP says he is not satisfied with the evidence available to him. I do not know whether issues such as intoxication or absence of corroboration affect the DPP's decisions. These are the matters I could speculate about, as could the Deputy, but it is something on which we need a scientific database from which to operate rather than simply saying we have a hunch that something is not right.

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