Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not sit on the relevant committee but I have read the proposed legislation and I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for its digest on it. I suggest that the Minister read the latter. If he does so, he will come across exactly what my colleagues have just said regarding the evidence on maximum sentences for repeat offenders. The jury is out. Like my colleagues and in view of my background, what upsets me most is the absolute failure to deal with sexual violence. Since I was elected to the Dáil, my colleagues and I have repeatedly asked for the Government to deal with sexual violence. We have asked for a basic updated sexual abuse and violence in Ireland, SAVI, report. We know domestic violence alone costs the economy €2.5 billion a year and that sexual crime goes unreported. Most women and men do not come forward. There is another Minister sitting beside the Minister for Justice and Equality who is very sensible and I recommend that she read the digest relating to the Bill.

One could not possibly go through with this. It is an illusion that something is being done about violence in Ireland when the complete opposite is being done. It reinforces stereotypes that packing somebody off to prison without treatment and saying that a minimum sentence with a further minimum sentence is the way to treat them. We know that is not the way and the Minister knows it. He has enough legal experts with him to tell him this is not true and the ordinary person in the street will tell him that. He is feeding into stereotypes. This Bill was ostensibly brought in following the dreadful case in Roscommon whereby children were neglected and abused. The latter was one of the rare occasions on which a woman was found guilty of incest. I understand that this legislation started out as a way to deal with the anomaly in law where a man is subject to a maximum of life imprisonment for such an offence whereas a much lesser sentence applied in the case of a woman. This is designed to get rid of that anomaly. We are ignoring that incest between consenting adults is a moral issue but we are criminalising it when it is unnecessary. I do not like it but it is in the guise of protecting children.

The Minister has repeatedly used Tom O'Malley as a recognised scholar of law and he has repeatedly asked what is proposed is necessary. Other countries have not criminalised incest between consenting adults. I find it repugnant but it is not necessarily something we should criminalise. Doing it in the guise of protecting children is appalling. I asked about this during Leaders' Questions on one occasion. I will ask again with regard to three children who were unprotected. I am addressing both the Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection in this regard. There was a recent case in the follow-up from Tuam where three young children under the protection of the HSE were repeatedly raped when they were in care.

That is bad enough, but accountability for this is nowhere to be seen. The matter has gone to an independent review panel. I and other Deputies have raised it in the House only to be told the panel is independent and we cannot put questions to it. We can ask the Charleton tribunal when it will report, we can ask the mother and baby tribunal what is happening with it and when it will report, but apparently we cannot ask the independent review panel why it has not reported on three young children who were systematically raped while under the protection of the HSE and in care. I will not go into the details. We all know them.

Those of us who are women sit here and ask if we are protecting children. We certainly are not. We are all party to that failure to a certain extent - some of us more than others. The Government has the power to do something about this namely, giving Tusla proper resources and putting in place proper management structures within that organisation. Later, we will debate legislation relating to the HSE. The latter lacks a board - the last one was disbanded in 2012 as a temporary measure - and has been seeking to provide care in the absence of accountability on the part of management. It is 2019 and there is still no board in place to hold management to account. The good work Tusla and HIQA are doing has been highlighted, but the lack of governance has also been highlighted. The Charleton report recently put the focus absolutely on Tusla and the HSE in the context of the absence of governance and the role of the Garda.

Why am I mentioning all this in the context of this legislation? It is because this is an illusion, and that is putting it mildly. I hope Sinn Féin will not support the legislation. If it does, it will be buying into the hypocrisy that is going on in the attempts to please one or two Independent Members. If we are seriously interested in protecting children, this is not the way to do it. I ask for sense to prevail. Let us work together because the protection of children is above and beyond politics. What is proposed here is certainly not the way to proceed. If Fianna Fáil supports this, it will be truly disgraceful on its part to buy into this kind of game.

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