Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is proposing to use criminal law relating to sexual offences to pursue a wide range of issues, from equality matters for members of the LGBTQ community to sex education in schools. It is not within the remit of my Department to deal with issues around the purchase of sex. Of course the new offence of criminalising the purchase of sexual services is dealt with. We have already introduced an amendment to deal with a review.

Several of the matters raised by Deputy Coppinger are relevant to ongoing campaigns. Awareness raising campaigns are run by my Department and the National Office for the Prevention of Sexual, Domestic and Gender-based Violence. Recently, that office launched a national awareness-raising campaign, "What would you do?", as part of the second national strategy. Considerable funding going into the campaign and it is under ongoing review. The campaigns are aimed at raising awareness of domestic and sexual violence. Moreover, they are aimed at bringing about change in long-established societal behaviours and attitudes. The idea is to activate people with the aim of decreasing and preventing this violence. Such education and awareness will be underpinned by legislative provisions, including the provisions of this Bill as well as the Domestic Violence Bill, which I published last week.

Deputy Coppinger's amendment is outside the scope of the Bill. Clearly, that is not to show any ambivalence in standing up to domestic, sexual or gender-based violence. I cannot accept the amendment. It is not within my remit to report on a review of sex education in schools and colleges. That is one function the amendment seeks to provide for. Clearly, everyone in the House is agreed with the basic proposition that we should take every possible action to deal with sexual and gender-based violence and to withstand all forms of it. I believe this can be done by a variety of actions, activities and processes as well as strong legislation that we are committed to introducing. It is a broad amendment and, unfortunately, I am not in a position to accept it.

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