Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)

I am grateful to Deputy Costello and my other colleagues for sharing their time with me. I am pleased the Minister, Deputy Reilly, is present for this important debate. I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the Bill. I spoke on it in the other House in April when the Labour Party introduced a Private Members' Bill on the issue. The Bill is based largely on the work that was done in the Seanad in the past session. I pay tribute to my former colleague in the Seanad, Senator Ivana Bacik, on her determination to ensure this practice is made illegal in this country.

Female genital mutilation is an appalling abuse of the human body. According to figures from Amnesty International approximately 3,000 women and young girls in this country have had this abuse performed on them. It is a practice that they neither sought nor asked for. It is carried out on them by their elders who are making a life-altering decision on their behalf. I refer not only to the physical dangers but also to the lifelong psychological distress.

It is important that we pass a law banning FGM in Ireland but it is also crucial that we support campaigns in countries where this practice is still widely carried out. I visited Tanzania a couple of years ago as a member of the overseas development committee where I saw at first hand how the Irish Aid programme is working to eradicate the practice. We help train ex-practitioners to educate people on the dangers of the practice and try to convince people to move away from it. While there, I spoke with the Prime Minister of Tanzania, Mr. Pinda, and tried to impress upon him the need to ensure that politicians lead from the front in this respect in countries such as Tanzania. I also stressed to him the importance of community and political leaders openly condemning the practice and calling for it to be stopped.

This political commitment has been happening across Europe and Africa but more pressure is required. In 2005 the African Union passed the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa in 2005. Article 5 of the protocol bans FGM but to date only 28 of the 53 countries in the African Union have ratified it. I urge both the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Minister of State with responsibility for trade and development and the Minister for Health to ensure that we put pressure on the remaining countries to ratify the protocol as soon as possible.

I note from the Report Stage debate in the Seanad the concern over the dual criminality clause. Section 4(1)(c) provides that a person is guilty of an offence but only if it is done or attempted to be done, "by a person who is a citizen of Ireland or is ordinarily resident in the State, and would constitute an offence in the place in which it is done." In practice, this means that for a person to be convicted in this country of having performed FGM on a young girl then it must also be a crime in the country where the abuse first happened. That is not the position with the UK legislation, under which the person can be prosecuted if the procedure is carried out in a country where it is not illegal. I invite the Minister to address this when he concludes this debate. In the other House he said that an amendment would be introduced to the Bill in the Dáil so that we can prosecute people in this country who are involved in this atrocious practice, regardless of the law in their own countries. I hope the change can be incorporated in the Bill.

I welcome the Bill. I congratulate the Minister, his staff and outside agencies which have been involved in ensuring the Bill reached the floor of the House.

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