Mary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the publication of the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007. One should always declare one's interests and I am one of eight patrons of Ruhama, the only body dealing with prostitution in Ireland in a helpful, sympathetic and open manner. I have been a patron for 15 or 16 years and I pay tribute to the work former Deputy Monica Barnes of Fine Gael did in this area. I was Minister for Health for ten short weeks when she phoned to say she wanted to meet me. Incidentally, I was not put out for any misdemeanour, but rather because I did not support the incoming Taoiseach and then leader of Fianna Fáil. I did, later, of course. In any event she came to see me in Hawkins House and brought three women with her who had set up Ruhama. It was the spring of 1992 and since then I have kept in touch with them and have been able to be of some help, periodically.

At that time they wanted a grant towards the cost of a van for use in their street work. The Department of Health had a small amount of National Lottery funding and because of my great admiration for Monica Barnes and what she did for women, as well as for the work of Ruhama, we gave them £20,000 to enable them to go onto the streets, so to speak, for the first time and meet with the women who were under the control of pimps, recruiters etc. I was always glad to have been of help in that regard.

I asked at one stage what Ruhama meant. It is from Lo-Ruhama in the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament, meaning, "She who is not loved, is now loved". I thought that was so evocative and indicative of what Ruhama does. In my previous existence in the Seanad, I introduced a Private Members' Bill on this whole issue. It never got anywhere as it was overtaken by the election and we all became very busy. Nonetheless, I did that and carried out a good deal of research in the process.

This Bill is a very good initiative. I know the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Michael McDowell, had done a certain amount of work in this area and indeed had almost brought the Bill to fruition. It is both evolutionary and developmental in its nature. It is evolutionary because legislation has already been passed in this area, including the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000 and the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998. When introducing this Bill, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform stated he would introduce another that would provide further certainty and safeguards for women. He said "it is intended that a framework will be put in place whereby a victim of trafficking can be afforded an immediate period of recovery and reflection in the State," and that he would achieve this in the forthcoming immigration and residency Bill. I am glad because such a provision is not included in the legislation as drafted. Frameworks always sound good but I wonder what legal certainty the proposed framework will have when implemented. A framework would offer succour and allow those who have been trafficked a period of reflection and recovery. It would be a very powerful statement of our real intent to deal with the roller-coaster emotions of women trafficked into Ireland.

I support many other aspects of this Bill, including the provision on consent. The issue of consent leads to uncertainty because it is hard to prove. To my mind, any of the women helped by Ruhama certainly did not give consent to their recruiters and were lured under the pretext that faraway hills were green and that they would have a rosy life and great earning potential in Ireland. Little do those being lured know they are being introduced to seedy, grubby apartments or bedsits in which they are told to ply their trade and give their money to their pimp or recruiter. They are debased and abused on an hourly basis and if their earnings are not high enough, they are further dehumanised and debased. Consent is, therefore, a difficult issue. I believe no consent is given.

The problem of trafficking is very significant and opaque and largely unreported, except for incidents such as the Sligo and Galway cases, as mentioned by colleagues in the House. When the Minister stated there were 76 cases, he was not reflecting the true number. Who reports such incidents? If a woman manages to escape, is she then free from the fear of being caught again by her recruiter who would make her undergo further awful debasement? While I accept that the figure of 76 cases in seven years was given to the Minister by his officials in good faith, I do not believe it reflects the true number. The fear felt by a woman when approaching a garda is significant. I, therefore, caution against believing trafficking is very rare. Although 76 cases are 76 too many, I believe there are even more. The problem is opaque and I do not know how it can be made less so.

Article 26 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings proposed a non-punishment provision but it has not been included in this legislation. I hope it will be entertained by the Minister on Committee Stage. We have cited the case of the woman incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison simply because she was trafficked into the country. She was under the cloud of having committed a crime but we should be very clear that she committed none. The crime was on the part of the person who procured her for the purpose of prostitution.

The old ideas on prostitution have long gone. Prostitution was never right but it used to involve a woman on the street being approached by a man in a car. Ruhama's biennial report for 2005-06 states:

It is now more controlled by criminals with an increasing number of women in indoor prostitution, operating out of brothels, massage parlours, escort agencies etc. These are dispersed throughout the city and indeed throughout the entire country. They are able to operate clandestinely out of private apartments. Modern technology (mobile phones and the internet) has hugely assisted pimps in advertising their prostitution scams without restrictions and enabling easy covert access for the men who buy the women.

We may not be open about the subject but it is a question of men paying money to get women and of the debasement of women. It is still the case that it is a domestic issue, but one must bear in mind the circumstances of women brought from abroad in the belief they are coming to a bright new life in a new land where they will have a job with promises of monetary return. In the first week or two after their arrival they may be brought around the streets of the capital or elsewhere in the belief they are in a bright new land, but they are then harnessed into working in prostitution, on foot of which the trafficker or pimp earns considerable cash returns. One can only imagine the disillusionment of the women and their feelings of debasement and humiliation. Many would not have known anything about this small land to which they were lured and may only have seen it on a map or globe. If they are from a country in eastern Europe where Roman Catholicism is practised, they may have been told they were being brought to a Catholic country.

The Ireland of which we speak and to which women are being trafficked is no longer the land of comely maidens and youthful swains who are seeking to meet, talk and walk with one another. Rather, it is a land of sleazy brothels where seedy acts are carried out for money. The women acting as the conduit for the money are receiving very small recompense and are victims of international groups which are, in many cases, very powerful and are seeking to establish centres in various countries in which they can ply their trade and abuse women.

I commend the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and his officials on introducing the Bill so soon after the formation of the new Government. I am happy they have done so. I am pleased that many of the suggestions I made in my Private Members' Bill are included in this legislation. However, I am worried that the Bill does nothing to change the law whereby those who are trafficked can be jailed or deported. What are we talking about? It is the most awful thing. Perhaps we are harking back to the days of cherchez la femme, when it was assumed that women were at fault. It is proposed that women can be jailed or deported for the crime of having been trafficked. When the Minister and his officials review the comments made by Deputies today, I hope they consider drawing up some amendments to address this aspect of the Bill.

I appreciate that the matter of consent is a difficult one. Article 4b of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings — the trafficking protocol — dictates that a victim of trafficking cannot legally be said to have consented when any of the means set out in the definition of trafficking in Article 4a have been used. Ruhama has said that the Moldovan trafficking legislation sets an example in this regard. The action being taken in this Chamber today means that it is a good day for the human rights of women, in particular. It is good that Ireland will have finally acceded to the Council of Europe protocol when this legislation has been enacted. I hope Ruhama will be represented on the high level group that is to be established.

I praise the vice squad of the Garda Síochána, which does a great deal of work with Ruhama in tackling trafficking, which is a major global problem, in as diligent a manner as it tackled earlier problems associated with prostitution. I am always conscious of the good and bad that exists in the world. It cannot be doubted that evil will always abound. No law, however worthy and well-implemented, will ever root out evil practices like trafficking. As legislators, we are responsible for ensuring that those who engage in the trafficking of other human beings can be caught. Our duty is to ensure that no aspect of human trafficking is allowed to continue, so that it becomes one of the forms of evil we leave behind in the early days of this new century.

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