Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to discuss some of the other amendments apart from section 10. The Minister has taken on board the loitering issue, which was deleted and I absolutely agree it would have been scandalous to keep it in, but there are other measures in the Bill. Sex workers will still be penalised whereby if they arrested, their earnings can still be removed. I ask the Minister to support the amendments several of us have tabled in this regard. The Minister made the point that it could lead to people higher up the chain, such as big organised prostitution pimps, putting pressure on prostitutes, but the reality is sex workers are those who are paying. We should bring in laws to deal with the pimps and the organisers.

I note that the Minister has taken on board the much heftier penalties against those who organise prostitution. We have tabled an amendment to exclude from the definition of brothel-keeping two women working together in a brothel but not pimping. This is important because sex workers should not be subject to harassment and prostitution. It might be asked how we can go after the brothel owners in such cases but that is very simple. We introduce different laws to deal with them. We do not have to keep laws that penalise sex workers to target people higher up.

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