Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are a number of issues raised by this motion that spring straight to mind. I was contacted by email in late 2016 by a constituent about her daughter's situation. The latter travelled by bus with her friends to an underage disco, with some of them drinking on the bus. When she arrived, she was dragged down an alleyway by a number of boys and sexually assaulted. One of the boys in the midst of the assault said, "No. Stop this." He wanted to stop it and pulled away. All of this was caught on CCTV cameras, there were witnesses, the Garda was called, the girl was taken to hospital and all the evidence was there, yet, to the dismay of her mother and herself, it was to the juvenile programme that these three lads were sent and they received only a caution. It states at the end of this email that this destroyed the girl's life, she suffered from post-traumatic stress and she failed her leaving certificate. When she looked on Facebook with her friends, however, she saw the lads who did this enjoying themselves in the community and saw that everything was fine in their lives, yet her life had been destroyed. This mother has done an awful lot of work over the past two years. Her point is that those who commit sexual assault, regardless of age, should not be part of this programme and that something needs to be done to recognise this. We often say someone is in the horrors. This family has been in the horrors since this happened a number of years ago. The girl's younger siblings, who are now teenagers, have grown up to know about this and their mother is worried that if they meet these lads out in a bar or a disco or something, there will be a row and more bad things will happen as a consequence. At the core of all this is that the assault was not dealt with appropriately from the point of the view of the victim, her family or indeed the perpetrators' families.

When I heard a week or two ago of this case coming up before the Policing Authority and what had happened, it brought it all back to me. I said to myself, "Jesus, I raised this with Deputy Frances Fitzgerald two years ago", when I was told the diversion programme was a great programme and everything was fine. At some point or other responsibility must be taken here as to how this has happened. The one thing that needs to come out of this is that sexual assault cases cannot go down this path, and I say this to the Minister of State directly. I would like the Minister or the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, or both of them, to meet this woman and talk to her about her experience. If they do so, perhaps they will start to do the right thing about this. I am not blaming the Minister of State or the Minister in particular, but this situation has gone on for many years. I have talked to a number of other constituents of mine who have had similar experiences, although not at all as severe or as problematic as the case to which I have referred. Young people have carried out serious crimes in the community and these constituents feel they were not dealt with appropriately. I understand gardaí are under stress and at times under-resourced and that all these issues are ongoing, but when we see systematic failure, which is what we see here, it needs to be acknowledged and someone needs to stand up and say it needs to end. That is the one thing I am asking to come out of this. This was a serious sexual assault. I understand there are a number of other such cases. They can no longer be dealt with through the juvenile diversion programme.

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