Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Bill is very positive and I support it. However, I think sections 24 and 25 have no place in it. This is a Bill to protect vulnerable children and people with disabilities. I have difficulty with the definition of "capacity". The simplest thing to do in order to get consent across the floor would be to delete these two sections. There is absolutely no need for them. I have taken the precaution of reading the contributions to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and I realise the huge work that went into the legislation. The fundamental problem is that the Tánaiste is either inadvertently or deliberately conflating two issues - trafficking and the purchase of consensual sex.

Dr. Eilis Ward and her colleague from NUIG, where I am from myself, made a very sensible contribution. She told the committee that their research suggested that prostitution is an area of social policy that is not amenable to control through the law and may, in fact, be impossible to abolish. Their written submission expands on this:

"[T]he current policy situation [where the purchase of sex is not a criminal offence] may in fact represent the best kind of response – one in which prostitution is neither legalised nor abolished, in which the state is empowered to address trafficking through existing anti-trafficking legislation...

In the Bill the Tánaiste proposes to criminalise the purchase of sex, ostensibly to protect the sex worker. I have no doubt it will do the complete opposite. I did not come into the Chamber lightly to speak against these two sections. I realise that more than 90% of the women involved in prostitution wish to exit it. That was very clear in their contribution to the Oireachtas joint committee. Quite a substantial number of the sex workers get into the sex industry below the age of 18 years. I have no hesitation in acknowledging openly that this is a very vulnerable segment. However, the Tánaiste is approaching this in a patriarchal manner whereby the Government knows best, as opposed to actually listening to the voices of the people involved.

They have pointed out repeatedly that it will lead to more danger for them. They continue to express concerns that the criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services will greatly impact the safety and the well-being of workers. Criminalisation puts sex workers at risk of isolation and further danger as the power to set terms and conditions lies with the person facing risk of arrest. I want to deal with that, and the Minister might reflect on it as a woman. If a man is paying for the purchase of sex and he is criminalised for doing that, how dangerous does the Minister believe that makes it for the woman? She provides the service, gets her money and is then supposed to complain to the Garda. Can the Minister imagine what a vulnerable position that places her in to the person who is now being criminalised? I do not know how the Minister will get convictions because she is asking the sex worker to make the complaint and go into the court as a witness in order that the man can be criminalised.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger is right in one sense. By deleting all we are deleting, we are leaving the 1993 Act in place, which makes it an offence to solicit. However, what she is failing to point out is that the Minister's legislation is introducing a new offence of loitering under the Public Order Act.

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