Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this short but important piece of legislation. I was a member of the committee that worked on the Children Act in 2000.

As I recall, that legislation took a year to go through the Houses. There was very detailed committee consideration and nobody around the table envisaged that section 252 would be interpreted in the way it has been.

The president of the Court of Appeal made the point abundantly clear that on reading the section in plain English, one would have to interpret it in the way the courts obviously have done. It was certainly not the intention of any Member of the Oireachtas at the time that there would be a blanket prohibition on the identification of the victims of murder if they were children. It requires amending now. In his judgment, the president of the Court of Appeal indicated that this was a plain English reading of the section and that if how it has been interpreted was not the intent of the Oireachtas, then it was a matter for the Oireachtas to deal with. As a result, we have to put matters to right.

What is at stake here is important, as the Minister has indicated. Many families have suffered the awful bereavement of a murdered child who has been made anonymous by all of this. They cannot explain the hurt or horror or tell their stories. That is quite wrong in most instances. There are also families who will not want to have the spotlight of publicity shone upon them, particularly those with other children that will not want a surviving child or children to be known as the sibling of a murder victim and the trauma that would bring on them forever. Arriving at a solution is a careful balancing act.

When this matter first arose, I thought a simple amendment to the Children Act could be introduced. I suggested at a committee meeting that we could do that by way of adding an amendment to one of the miscellaneous provisions Bills going through the Houses. More mature reflection would indicate that is not the best way to proceed. We need a stand-alone Bill.

I heartily commend the work done by Senator McDowell and Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, both of whom are extraordinarily experienced lawyers. They produced a Bill to address this issue. I understood that their approach was to restore the position to that which obtained prior to the court's determination. In other words, to restore it to the view that we understood we enacted when the Oireachtas passed the original Children Act. I am not 100% certain that this Bill does exactly that.

As already stated, it is very difficult to strike an absolute balance which will allow families who wish to tell their story to express their grief so that all of us can have a better understanding of the horrors that they are enduring and ensuring they are not excluded from doing that, while at the same time providing for those families who do not want photographs of themselves at a funeral or in the company of other children carrying the coffin of their beloved child. How do we strike that particular balance? I am interested in hearing the view of the Minister on that matter.

Every case is unique. The Bill is rather impenetrable to a lay reader. It is very difficult to understand all of it. It is an amending Bill which goes into a grounding Act. It relates to sections of the original Act that have to be read in parallel to it. The Minister's intention is that child witnesses would be protected and could not be identified, no more than child victims. It will be very difficult for a reporter to determine what exactly one can do without trespassing on the considerations of the Bill. We have to protect the victim when he or she needs to be protected, as well as protecting witnesses. As I said, in the context of a plain English reading of the amended section 252, which will be the new section in the Children Act, matters are not crystal clear.

Deputies have referred to the, thankfully rare, occasions on which children are murdered. Often, a murder is notified before a body is found. When a child is missing, his or her identity is almost always known and information is in the public media and a matter of enormous public focus, as one can imagine. There is an odd situation in that there is a very plainly a missing child who has been identified in the media for days, if not weeks. If a person is charged with an offence, suddenly the victim cannot be named for legal reasons.

Others have referred to a case in the news today. A person who had been identified very extensively last year cannot now be identified for legal reasons, those reasons being the decisions of the superior courts in regard to the interpretation of section 252 of the Children Act.

The amendment seems to seek to cover all likely circumstances, which is very difficult to achieve. I read the debate in the Seanad and noted the strivings of Senators, as well as the Minister, to do just that. Discretion is left to the courts, but perhaps there should be greater discretion rather than trying to circumscribe it in the way the Bill does. That might better meet all circumstances. As we find again and again, each set of circumstances is unique. If there is an opportunity for some dialogue between the presiding judge in a court case and the family directly involved before making a determination, perhaps that approach would better suit the generality of cases that are likely to arise.

I am putting this forward as a suggestion because I believe that we live in a very complicated world in which broadcasting is not merely a matter for a radio or television. Matters are broadcast on social media instantly and constantly and in different limited and extensive ways. Damage and permanent harm can be done in a way that we may not have envisaged in the drafting of legislation here. I stated that we live in a new world and I am conscious that young people in particular live in an online world now. Previously unthought of dangers and challenges exist. I am very grateful for the support the Minister gave to recent legislation to establish a new criminal justice framework for the operation of such things as bullying, harassment, the dissemination of intimate images and so on online. Fundamental to all of that is educating young people in particular about the dangers of online communications.

There are predators out there who lure people in and the best efforts of family members cannot always protect children from that. In recent murder cases, thankfully not so much in this jurisdiction but in neighbouring jurisdictions, often begin with the victim being groomed and lured into circumstances online. That is something we need to be mindful of as we develop our own legal frameworks.

The mental health of young people is extremely important, particularly in this time of Covid. I spoke to one GP in my constituency during the week. She told me that the most alarming thing she is dealing with is the rise in psychological problems of teenage girls in particular - boys too - who are under incredible stress. Much of that relates to their online life living in lockdown. There are new dangers that we need to be alert to and, through our public health system, responsive to.

We also need to reflect on our attitude to young offenders. It is only relatively recently that we built new institutions such as Oberstown and did away, thankfully, with the juvenile detention that we had in St. Patrick's Institution which was entirely unfit for purpose. However, we need to reflect to ensure that institutions such as Oberstown are properly supported and resourced and that they are linked into the community in a real way. We have to think of the victims of crime, the families at the heart of this legislation about whom we are thinking now. When the trial is over and someone is convicted for the heinous murder of a child, the family goes about its business without real support from the State thereafter. That is something we really must think about. While our supports during the trial processes have improved, the families remain third parties. They are neither the accused nor the prosecution but witnesses, even though, fundamentally, they are at the core of it all. When it is all over, what do we, as a society, do to support and assist them? We need to develop better supports for them.

There are victim liaison supports available. In Oberstown, for example, victims of juvenile crime can link in to Oberstown and at least be alerted to release dates of those who have perpetrated crimes against them or their families. That is an important and ongoing liaison that should happen. It would be a terrible shock for people to discover the perpetrator of a dreadful crime against their family walking down the street without knowing and being prepared for the shock of that. As well as introducing robust criminal law, we need to think about how we better support the victims of crime who are often third parties in a very legalistic system. We support, through legal aid and otherwise, those who are accused and need to put up a defence and the prosecution service is supported by the State to prosecute a crime. However, the victims are often the one party in all of this who are left to fend for themselves with the support of immediate friends and family. On an ongoing basis, I can only imagine how profoundly damaging that can be. We need to reflect further on the types of supports that we give in those circumstances.

I support the legislation because the changes envisaged are required. I am not certain that they do what most of us want the Bill to do, namely, to restore the pre-court determination and the interpretation of the Children Act, as we understood it, prior to the decisions of the High Court, to be endorsed by the civil Court of Appeal. Can the Minister reassure the House that it does that? Does it open any other avenues to other interpretations or complications? It reads as a rather complicated set of amendments that constitutes a new section of the Children Act. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response and to teasing out these matters more fully on Committee Stage. I understand the Minister's point about the need to move with speed and alacrity. We support her in that but equally important is the requirement to get this right so that we do not have to return to this matter once again.

I join with others in wishing the Minister, Deputy McEntee, well for her short sabbatical as she and her husband prepare for the arrival of their new child. I wish her every joy, success and happiness. I look forward to working with her again on her return to office.

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