Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Connolly makes a very strong point. There is a need to fix an obvious problem with the existing legislation. It has again been indicated, and the Minister of State indicated in his speech on Second Stage, that only two prosecutions for smuggling have happened in the past 20 years. That is preposterous. If that is correct, it is a clear indication our laws in this regard need altering. The question is how we ensure those who are exploiting and smuggling people for profit are prosecuted to the extent of the law to prevent tragedies, such as the awful one that has unfolded this evening, while at the same time, from listening to what the Minister of State said, protecting individuals with bona fide organisations who are engaged in humanitarian work not only from being convicted - Deputy Connolly is correct on this - but from being prosecuted. Fear of prosecution is a real and chilling issue.

I think the Minister of State has said that is his intention. In his speech on Second Stage he said that the section 9 humanitarian assistance defence:

provides that it ... [will be] a defence to prove on the balance of probabilities that the conduct ... engaged in for the purpose of providing humanitarian assistance, otherwise than for ... obtaining, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit.

We accept that is the Minister of State's intention, but the problem is he is putting humanitarian assistance in as a defence once the prosecution has actually commenced. We can do two things. I do not see how there is any resistance anywhere, including from the Government, to automatically exclude from being criminalised in any way, even from fear of prosecution, people who are working for a bona fide humanitarian organisation.

If we exclude anybody who, in the words of the amendment tabled by Deputy Connolly, "in the course of his or her work on behalf of a bona fidehumanitarian organisation, [is providing] assistance to a person seeking international protection", that is a major first step.

Then we have to deal with Deputy Kenny's point about individual actors who are motivated. How do we prevent them from being prosecuted? I am interested in the Minister of State's view on that. How far can we go to ensure they are not prosecuted, and therefore do not have to deploy the humanitarian assistance defence, without jeopardising the Minister's intention of ensuring we can prosecute the traffickers? Would the Minister of State take the first step by accepting that anybody who is working for a humanitarian organisation and in the course of their work provides humanitarian assistance is excluded from the provisions of these sections? Then we might spend some time seeing how we can strengthen the protection for individuals who are motivated to give humanitarian assistance not out of any material consideration but simply out of humanitarian consideration.

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