Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raised this matter by way of a question to the Minister for Justice, Deputy Simon Harris, last week, and I am raising it again today. I will explain why. In the context of Part 4 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, there is a statutory obligation to carry out a review. This was to be carried out within three years of the Act becoming operational in 2020. It is now more than three years later. The Minister for Justice gave some explanation which worried me, and I reflected on it. He said one of the major causes for the delay with that report was because the person in charge was side-lined onto the familicide and domestic homicide reviews. Neither of these reviews are available. When I looked back over that response, it did not make sense to me. On the untimely death of Norah Gibbins in 2020, the woman in charge of both reviews was asked to take on the review. Subsequently, she was then appointed to review the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017. That response, therefore, does not make sense to me. She was not waylaid. She was already appointed on one review when she was then asked to take on another review. We are now being told that she was waylaid to take on this role. It does not make sense. Both reviews are extremely important and the Government is failing in its legal obligation to carry them out.

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