Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister back to the House. I congratulate her and wish her and her family the very best for the future.

The Bill is a welcome development and is long overdue. It will introduce a number of reforms that will help to make our children and communities feel safer. The most recent statistics show more than 1,700 people are subject to the reporting requirement under the 2001 Act, 319 of whom are supervised by the Probation Service while 192 are under post-release supervision in the community. A total of 433 people who have been convicted of a sex offence are currently in prison. On the enactment of this Bill, sex offenders will be required to notify changes in their address within three days instead of seven days, which I welcome. I was amazed to learn the current law does not explicitly allow courts to prohibit a sex offender from working with children and vulnerable adults, and this change is welcome also.

The Bill also provides powers to An Garda Síochána to take fingerprints, palm prints and photographs to confirm a person’s identity. It creates a legal basis for the assessment and management of risk posed by sex offenders by teams involving probation officers, gardaí and personnel from Tusla, which I was again surprised to learn was not already the case.

Another welcome development in this Bill allows An Garda Síochána to disclose information relating to persons on the sex offenders register in some circumstances, for example, where there is a serious threat to public safety. It allows for the electronic monitoring of sex offenders to assist in ensuring an offender’s compliance with a sex offender order or post-release supervision order. The Bill also places the current sex offenders risk assessment and management monitoring process for high-risk offenders on a statutory footing. All these changes are to be welcomed. We can pass all the laws we like, however, but they will not mean a thing if they are not backed up by money. I ask the Government to ensure that the required investment is made to ensure these measures get the best possible start.

Media outlets covering crimes of a sexual nature must also think twice before reporting on these crimes. Other Deputies spoke about this aspect as well. A headline I saw last week referred to a woman having been assaulted by two men after drinking with them all day. It should have read, "Woman raped by two men”. It is irrelevant what she was doing. She was raped, and no means no. There must be no excuses offered for offenders. In addition, reports of child pornography should refer to images of child sexual abuse. Call it what it is. Pornography implies some level of consent. A child cannot consent to sexual contact and we must ensure that the language we use reflects the brutalities of the crime.

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