Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan on the introduction of this Bill, which seeks to empower our courts to make orders restricting the travel of sex offenders where it is deemed that such travel could pose a risk to vulnerable people in jurisdictions that do not have adequate child protection and child welfare legislation and services. It is undoubtedly true that people who have been convicted of sex abuse in this State are travelling to other countries to abuse children. We have an obligation to protect such children. The work of the Preda Foundation in this area has to be commended. Fianna Fáil supports this Bill in principle. I acknowledge that Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan has addressed some constitutional issues that may exist. Fianna Fáil shares her concerns while believing they can be ironed out. In particular, consideration will have to be given to whether the provisions of this Bill amount to a breach of the constitutional right to travel. We will submit amendments on Committee Stage to help to improve and strengthen the Bill in this respect.

Sex offenders travel to certain countries because they know they can engage in the sexual exploitation of children with relative impunity in those jurisdictions. According to ECPAT International, which is a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against child sex tourism, child sex tourism is prevalent in more than 24 countries, with the worst affected locations being in South America and south-east Asia. UNICEF estimates that 2 million children throughout the world are exploited sexually every year, which is just horrific. As we know, Australia has become one of the first countries to place restrictions on convicted paedophiles who seek to leave the country. It has done this with a view to protecting children in other countries. If child sex tourism is to be tackled, there needs to be a co-operative global effort. Through this Bill, Ireland certainly has the capacity to be at the forefront of this effort.

According to a global study on the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism, or SECTT, which was carried out in the Netherlands:

Europe remains the number one tourist destination, welcoming more than half of the world's tourists in 2013, and there are suggestions that children's vulnerability to SECTT is on the rise. Western European countries have long been sources of travelling child sex offenders... but some are now destinations. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe are emerging as source and destination countries - often lacking the laws to protect children that exist elsewhere in the region.

The report continues:

Twenty years ago, it might have been possible to sketch a rough global map showing where international travelling sex offenders were from, and where they were going. Today, the distinctions between countries of origin and countries of destination are blurring. Terms such as country of 'origin', 'destination' or 'transit' are rapidly becoming outdated - countries can be any of these, or even all three, at different times. SECTT is now mainly a domestic and intra-regional crime, and can be found in both the world's most developed and least developed countries. What matters is where children are victimised everywhere. Given that two decades of efforts have failed to put a dent in SECTT, that more children than ever before are being affected and that no country is immune, the Global Study highlights the need to re-frame this issue - looking beyond what was once referred to as 'child sex tourism'. This means broadening the scope of policies, programmes and research to include tourism and travel (whether international or domestic), and identifying and addressing what it is, exactly, about travel and tourism, that leaves children so vulnerable to exploitation.

In 2016, the Government gave a commitment to introduce "stronger sanctions aimed at protecting children from sexual exploitation, child abuse material and online grooming" and to "enhance the arrangements... for post-release supervisions". The Fine Gael-led Government has failed to honour these commitments. As we have seen in the first four months of 2018, it is continuing to fail to protect children from the most abhorrent crimes. In January, we learned that a 26 year old, Matthew Horan, had used numerous social media sites to gather thousands of images of children as young as nine. In February, the Garda Inspectorate published a report which found that too few gardaí are deployed to try to catch sexual abusers of children and online groomers and that the Garda Síochána has been slow to make the necessary changes in its approach to child abuse crimes. In March, we heard the shocking news that 11 people had been arrested in Limerick as part of an investigation into a child sex ring. In April, there was a public outcry when a former civil servant who had been caught in possession of almost 60,000 child pornography images and videos escaped a jail sentence.

Although Fianna Fáil welcomed the enactment of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, we do not believe the Act goes far enough. Part 2 of that Act introduced new offences relating to the sexual exploitation of children, including online grooming. If the gardaí are not resourced to police the Internet, these criminals will continue to go undetected. Part 3 of the 2017 Act introduced increased maximum sanctions for those convicted of sexual offences against children. While increased maximum sentences for these awful crimes are welcome, the Government's failure to establish a sentencing commission means there continues to be huge inconsistency in the sentences handed down in cases of this nature. Indeed, on 27 April 2018, Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, while sentencing a man convicted of the repeated rape of his granddaughter, described the lack of sentencing guidelines as "bizarre". The Government must face up to the fact that it is continuing to fail our children. If Fianna Fáil were in government, it would help to address this situation by establishing a judicial sentencing commission to issue sentencing guidelines, promote clarity and consistency in sentencing and improve public confidence in the system. We would look for more vigorous post-release supervision of convicted sex abusers. We would resource the Garda Síochána properly to enable it to target child sex abusers effectively, particularly online. We would resource the Internet safety office within the Department of Justice and Equality properly too. We would also establish a digital safety commissioner. Having said that, we commend Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan and we support this Bill.

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