Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 6, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:“Certain payments not to be proceeds of crime

7.(1) Subsection (2)applies if by any enactment to be passed it is provided that a person who pays or gives another person money or other consideration for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a prostitute is guilty of an offence, while the receipt of money or other consideration paid or given for such a purpose is not made an offence.

(2) If this subsection applies, then the money or other consideration referred to in subsection (1)shall not, by reason only of the passing of an enactment providing as referred to in that subsection, be the proceeds of crime for the purposes of the Principal Act.”.

This amendment is a little esoteric and one would wonder about its relevance to the Bill. It is an issue a lawyer raised with me and I thought it was worth teasing out. I hope I signalled the issue in my contribution on Second Stage. The new criminal provisions to deal with prostitution in this country would move criminal responsibility away from the sellers of sex to the buyers. The proceeds of the transaction would accrue to the prostitute. In a pithy statement I tried to encapsulate what would happen - we might not put the prostitute in jail but we would put them in the poorhouse because we are criminalising the proceeds of crime.

We have not debated the provisions of the sexual offences Bill in any great detail, which follow what, I understand, people describe as the Swedish model. It criminalises the purchase of sex but decriminalises the sale of sex. The victim is perceived to be the prostitute, that is, the person who is required by whatever economic circumstances to sell sex.

This provision would mean that, while a person would be decriminalised in terms of the act, the gains made would be criminal assets and she would be subject to having them seized. I do not know whether the Tánaiste has a view on this, but it is worth thinking it through if we are going to be consistent.

In the previous Administration we had discussions on moving towards the Swedish model of recognising that women - almost exclusively women are the ones selling sex and in very vulnerable situations, often having been trafficked - should not be criminalised in this way either if we are decriminalising their action in the selling of sex.

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