Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Earlier this year, the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report 2021 ranked Ireland as a tier 2 watch list country when it comes to human trafficking. Azerbaijan, Belarus and Romania are the only other European countries in that category. Last month, I asked the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, for her reaction to this. She adopted a defensive tone and suggested that the US State Department was ignoring the progress of her Department over the past 12 months. Her view was that as she had dealt with the issue of the fishing industry and the reply she offered stated, "This assessment was fully investigated by An Garda Síochána and no evidence was found to support the allegations of widespread human trafficking in the fishing industry," and observed that "these accusations are without foundation." Those were her words. They were published on the Oireachtas website on 23 September. Just a month later, on 20 October, the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment heard that 35 fishermen had been admitted to the national referral mechanism for human trafficking. The information was disclosed by Michael O'Brien, the head of the fisheries campaign with the International Transport Workers Federation. We know there is a problem in the State. We also know there is major difficulties when it comes to human life and trafficking. We are speaking on a day when human life has been lost. There is a category of people who are involved in trying to protect human life. If a person, from a humanitarian perspective, is involved in seeking to protect human life, they should have no aspersions cast upon them legally as to their motivation. To be under threat of being charged because of their humanitarian response is wrong. Therefore, I support Deputy Connolly's amendments.

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