Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is correct. We need to see Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan's Bill in the wider context of inequality on a global scale where the poorest countries are at an enormous disadvantage. There is a certain irony in that last week on Private Members' business we were discussing the shortage of nurses here because we do not pay them enough, which has led to us basically hoovering up valuable medical staff from those same developing countries, which they could use at home. We have seen it before with issues such as adoption, where people with money can travel to foreign countries and pay huge sums of money to adopt children, in some instances, in areas where they do not know whether the mother has been forced into a pregnancy in order to deliver, in essence, a baby for sale, or where they do not know what the circumstances are, whether poverty, in and of itself, has forced that person to give up her child. This issue is similar. It is the poverty in these countries and the lack of regulation that exposes people of all ages to engage in sex work, sometimes to combat poverty, but it also is that system that exposes them to gross exploitation and danger.

While I note the points made by Deputy O'Loughlin about the Netherlands study, how sex tourism is possibly shifting a bit and that we cannot use terms such as that as they are becoming outdated, we all know there are certain countries where this activity is not governed appropriately and where it is much more prevalent. People deliberately and purposely go to those countries to engage in underage sex, which they would not get away in other jurisdictions. The idea that that could ever be voluntary in the case of the child is utter nonsense. If we want to protect children at home, we have a global responsibility to protect them abroad as well.

I am very glad that people have drawn on the excellent work done by Fr. Shay Cullen and the People's Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation, PREDA. The stories that come from them about lives destroyed are utterly heartbreaking. I will not repeat the points that have been made. It is the case because people think they can get away with it off the grid. One of the pieces written by Fr. Cullen was quite illustrative in terms of looking at the bounce-back and how it can come home to us.

Deputy Healy referred to 150,000 child images being found in Ireland in February as a result of raids on people's based on information from abroad. He made the point correctly that to join a photo-sharing paedophile club on the dark web, one has to prove one's credentials. One has to show pictures of abuse and often one has to show oneself taking part in that abuse in order to prove one's bona fides. In many instances, people do that by travelling abroad to abuse children. Following that, as we know, many of them are not put on trial and bribe their way out of it.

This Bill is important. It is not a panacea but it examines an aspect of the problem. It is a child protection measure. It is not about retribution with respect to people who had committed a crime in the past and who were rehabilitated or were striving to deal with their criminal behaviour. That is important because it is not a blanket ban naming countries and it is not a blanket ban excluding sex offenders. It gives discretion to the Judiciary to weigh up the progress of somebody who was on the sex offenders register to see if he or she is a person who should be restricted because there is a fear that the person's offending behaviour will recur in another jurisdiction. That is proportionate.

I do not agree with the comments about rights. We need to balance rights, and I am not in favour of tipping rights on either side. A society has to be able to respect all rights and not ignore them. I echo the points made by Deputy Mattie McGrath. There is an appalling development in vigilante behaviour with respect to this area of crime. There are terrible cases of entrapment using social media and so on, which I do not find acceptable. What this Bill is trying to do is much more proportionate. It does not propose a travel ban or blacklisting countries. It is very much proportionate to protecting children in other jurisdictions.

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