Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I welcome the commitments put on record by the Minister as they will be of some ease to organisations working at the coalface. I reiterate the point made by Deputy Naughten that we will have no statutory provisions with regard to victims protection, and after this debate I am still at a loss in understanding why the amendment is being resisted.

I am prepared to take on board Deputy O'Rourke's comments that it is true Departments — not least the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform — do not particularly want to be landed with an overly-prescriptive charter of victim protection, as is the case here. There are certain elements of such victim protection that are more important than others. Why it would not be enshrined in a Bill concerning trafficking is beyond me.

There is a world of difference between immigration and what we are discussing, cross-border international crime. Immigration is a different issue as we are debating the trafficking of human beings, although not necessarily of our nationality. They are mainly young girls being traversed across Europe into positions of exploitation, where pimps and international criminals are profiting from selling their services to users in this jurisdiction.

All we are saying is the people being trafficked should be provided with a caring environment after they are rescued from the clutches of these pimps. They should be allowed circumstances where they can psychologically and physically heal and recover from the experience. I find it very difficult to understand how that in any way abrogates the criminal law designs of the Bill.

We are agreed that the measure being introduced by the Minister is important for all the reasons we have addressed. Some of the commitments he made in reply are of some comfort to people interested in this debate outside of here. The major defect in this legislation is that it does not itself encompass victim protection measures for the small number of people who find themselves being disgracefully exploited in our jurisdiction.

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