Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister gave a good outline in his response as to what is available but said very little about why people are not availing of the service. As Minister, his responsibility is to see why it has not been taken up. It is a very worthwhile service. In 2005, Amnesty International stated, "In practice this provision has not been used, and victims are generally unaware of its existence." It is a failing in itself on the part of his Department, the Garda and the prosecution services that victims are unaware that this is available to them. Yes, it is very limited in that it is only available when the case has proceeded to prosecution, but I think something like 80 or 90 cases are prosecuted every year. Nonetheless the uptake is still extremely small. It is very worrying, particularly for victims, when the prosecution for the case is actually a witness rather than a party to the case. That can be very traumatic for the victims.

The Minister mentioned that the O'Malley report will deal with this, and that is welcome, but the problem with that is that Professor O'Malley was initially supposed to report at the end of 2018, and now it is being said he will do so in 2019 or 2020. Such a long delay is very worrying.

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