Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

The Minister was right to point out that my colleague, Senator Regan, raised this matter in the Seanad. The amendment was first contained in Fine Gael's Victims' Rights Bill 2008. The Minister for Justice and Law Reform has had more than three years in which to consider this issue, but the thought process does not appear to have advanced far in that time.

The Minister stated that the draft general scheme of a sexual offences Bill is to be laid before the Government by the Minister of State with responsibility for children next autumn. This is interesting. As we know, a draft general scheme is not a Bill. When such a scheme is produced, a minimum of two years pass before any detailed legislation emerges from the Attorney General's office.

The promised legislation on this matter originated from a report published in November 2006 by a joint Oireachtas committee examining the question of sexual offences, but it is only now, some four years later, that a draft general scheme, not even a draft Bill, might be tabled before the Cabinet in the autumn. The report on child sexual offences and the issue of strict liability was published by the joint committee on the rights of the child in February 2009. It was supposed to produce a Bill, but we were told the Government was opposed to amending the Constitution to re-instate an offence of strict liability to protect children from sexual predators, particularly older people who prey on them for sexual pleasure. Instead, the Government favoured statutory changes, which were allegedly being worked on because this issue had been the subject of a 2006 report. We are now being told that legislation will be introduced in 2012 at the earliest, after the Government has left office. This is not treating the matter of sexual offences or the necessary reforms with seriousness.

The Minister cited a particular problem with the amendment. In some incest cases, only one or two family members are victims while other family members deny the allegations. The latter group wants the name of the alleged perpetrator, more usually the father than the mother, kept confidential. When someone has committed a sexual offence within a family, he or she is equally likely to commit one outside the family after being released from prison, having been convicted. The general public has a right to know, so this amendment should be accepted.

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