Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

With Deputy Shortall, yes.

The Green Party broadly welcomes many aspects of the Bill before the House and commends the Minister and the previous Seanad on all the hard work they invested in it. We are particularly pleased to see the proposed new criminal offences to protect children against grooming, new measures to protect them from online predators, new and strengthened offences to tackle child pornography, harassment orders to protect victims of convicted sex offenders and new provisions to be introduced regarding evidence by victims, particularly children.

The Green Party recognises the ambition to bring Irish law into line with a number of international legal instruments. However, we have serious reservations regarding Part 4 of the Bill, which deals with the purchase of sexual services. While we agree with the policy aim of reducing the levels of prostitution, we believe that this must not be done at the expense of increasing the safety risks or the health risks sex workers face.

In the past ten years, organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Population Fund and the well-known and esteemed medical journal, The Lancet, have all called for the full decriminalisation of sex work. While there are many different countries and approaches to learn from, what the Government is proposing is known as the Nordic model. This form of law usually involves the formal removal of criminal sanctions against sex workers and instead criminalises the buyer. What the Government is proposing is to criminalise the buyer and remove one of the criminal sanctions against solicitation but also to create a new solicitation crime and leave brothel keeping as a criminal act. The Nordic approach has received a significant level of criticism, particularly when It comes to the health and the safety of sex workers. From the point of view of the increased health risks stemming from the Introduction of similar laws in other jurisdictions, I draw the Ministers' attention to the report from HIV Ireland, which states that schemes to promote harm reduction and lessen the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, STIs, by sex workers are basically incompatible with the Nordic law model. The report notes that when sex workers are arrested in Sweden under this law, the police use the fact that they have been carrying condoms as evidence. Similar concerns have been expressed in Canada.

The Green Party is concerned that by criminalising the client, the more marginalised sex workers who continue to engage in prostitution will have to take on the burden of ensuring that the buyer of sex does not get arrested. The Vista Analysis report, which was undertaken for the Norwegian Government, indicates that sex workers were more likely to agree to go to the homes of clients following the introduction of the law there, thus lessening their control of situations and exposing them to increased risks. The same report indicated that following the introduction of the law, sex workers exhibited a higher tolerance for violence before they reported it to the police.

We fear that the compromising of the relationship with the Garda that would result from this law poses a risk that sex workers, particularly the most marginalised, would not receive redress for crimes committed against them. Under the proposed law, sex workers are still penalised for

working together in order to keep themselves safe. It has been shown that in other states, sex workers can also face difficulties in securing accommodation as their landlords can be prosecuted for letting premises to them. This can lead to forced evictions of sex workers from their homes.

Significant questions remain about the Nordic model. The Green Party’s key concern with it is that a sufficient evaluation has not been carried out upfront to show whether the changes brought in had any impact on the health and well being of sex workers. Stories are emerging of sex workers driven further underground and, therefore, out of safety in order to protect the identities of their clients. The latter means that they place themselves at even greater risk.

The UK is currently revisiting its approach. The select Home Affairs Committee has said that the Home Office should immediately introduce legislation to allow for solicitation by sex workers and to change brothel-keeping laws to allow workers share premises so that they are safer.

I know the legislation before us has been worked on since 2012 and I accept that everyone who has contributed has done so in absolute good faith and with an overarching desire to protect sex workers. However, I am concerned that we are rushing to enact it without full research and understanding in terms of identifying a baseline against which we can measure its success or otherwise. Most legislation requires an impact evaluation and consultation on the likely outcomes. That is what the UK is now seeking to do and we should consider doing something similar. Further, why does this proposed legislation not incorporate some element of a review mechanism to allow legislative reflection on its impact over a number of years? A similar provision is incorporated in the Gender Recognition Act 2015. It will be very difficult to make a judgment on the impact of the legislation when we have refused to undertake any prior evaluation of the existing situation.

Sex workers are a vulnerable group. It is wrong of this House to undertake a major public policy change that will impact on them without carrying out prior research or giving real consideration to the impact of similar changes in other countries. The crucial question we need to ask is how to reduce the number of people involved in sex work but in a way that does not risk the health or safety of existing sex workers.

The Green Party believes that the existing research does not at this stage sufficiently validate the Nordic model for us to believe it is the right choice for Ireland. We call on the Minister, therefore, to initiate a comprehensive baseline study on the practice of prostitution in Ireland. Such a study should be undertaken from a human rights perspective, considering the welfare of sex workers, the reason people enter the industry, the barriers to leaving and their experiences while in sex work. We also need to have a proper understanding of the current numbers of people working as sex workers.

In conclusion, the Green Party welcomes the bulk of the measures in this Bill. It contains many provisions which are excellent and we commend those involved to date on its thoroughness and its intention. However, we believe Part 4 will present a problem for the health and safety of sex workers, and reluctantly, we will be abstaining on Second Stage with a view to tabling an amendment to this on Committee and Report Stages to remove Part 4 which will allow us to support the Bill in the future. If not removed at that Stage, we will have no choice but to oppose the Bill on Final Stage.

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