Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)

I thank Deputy Coppinger for this important Bill and acknowledge all the people in the Gallery. There is something deeply broken in how we treat survivors of sexual violence in this country. I am not just talking about the underfunded services or the months-long waiting lists, although they are a part of it. I am talking about what happens when somebody does everything we ask of them, when they survive, report and stand in a courtroom and tell their story. Then we tell them their private counselling notes, pages filled with their most intimate thoughts, fears and memories, might be handed over to the very people who are trying to tear their credibility apart. A Cheann Comhairle, the absolute antithesis of justice is the retraumatising of its victims. This is retraumatising by design. It is State-sanctioned cruelty. That is why I support Deputy Coppinger's Bill today.

Right now we allow defence teams in sexual offence cases to apply for access to survivors' therapy records, where people speak the unspeakable and finally try to process the violence inflicted upon them, where trust and safety are supposed to exist. We have decided that is fair game in a courtroom. We call ourselves a country that supports victims and believes in a trauma-informed system but those are just words in a press release if we cannot do the most basic thing, namely, protect the private thoughts of someone who has been violated. We do not subpoena someone's confession to a priest or demand to see the notes of a TD's therapist, but a rape survivor, apparently her words, feelings and her mind are available for dissection if it helps get someone off the hook. We tell women to report and to trust the system, and then we betray that trust in the most personal, invasive way possible.

We only have to listen to survivors like Hazel Behan and so many others who have spoken about the terror of knowing their words, written in a safe room, could be weaponised against them in court. It is State violence in another form. This Bill simply says "enough". It says we do not care more about the defence strategy than we do about someone's right to seek help and privacy. It says that counselling records are not evidence, they are sacred. I know some will raise concern about the issue of a fair trial but let us be honest. What is fair about a trial where the burden of proof is on the victim to prove what happened to him or her, and that makes such people hand over every page of their inner life just to be believed? What is fair about putting trauma on public display while the accused sit shielded by the presumption of innocence? There is this idea that the system is balanced. It is not. It is clearly tilted against survivors and anyone who does not come into the courtroom with power already in their back pocket. This Bill does not tip the scales too far the other way. It simply tries to make the balance a little less cruel.

Let us not pretend this is radical. It is by no means revolutionary. It is catching up to what survivors have asked for over and over again. This is us finally hearing what they have been saying, that their healing should never become part of someone else's defence. The real tragedy is that this even needs to be said, but it does. If we believe victims, then we should and must protect them, not just in posters or during awareness week but in legislation, in courtrooms and in every decision we make. I support the Bill and urge all Members to do so. We must stand with survivors to protect their right to heal in peace and finally say we will not turn their pain into someone else's legal strategy.

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