Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendments. Amendment No. 2 seeks to amend the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act in order that offences under the legislation we are introducing now are included. That is appropriate. It is also appropriate that proceedings under the Domestic Violence Act should be excluded from the terms of any prospective mediation. Section 3 of the Mediation Act sets out the scope of that Act and indicates to what mediation shall not apply. It would be entirely inappropriate if a person who was the victim of domestic abuse but who was not successful in maintaining a criminal prosecution was forced, because of these civil proceedings, to engage in mediation with an abusive partner.

Accordingly, amendment No. 3 also makes sense and we will be supporting it. The same applies in respect of amendment No. 4.

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