Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

We should register that it is poor the Minister is not here himself. No offence to the Minister of State but it is also poor that he is not even in the area of justice. He is in the Department of heritage and housing, I believe. This does not send a good message.

What the Minister of State has read out is even more disappointing than I thought it was going to be. Listen to what the Minister is saying; he is saying that "Elevating the rights of a victim of an alleged sexual offence in this way inevitably comes at the cost of defence rights and trial in due course of law." Elevating the rights of a victim costs the defence? I have had the suspicion all along that this Minister is really not getting it and is really not that particularly interested in gender-based violence but is more focused on migration and chartered flights and all of that. This is barrister speak. One of the problems we have is that the Minister is soaked in the courts system. Inevitably, he will go along with what has always been the way.

The other thing that is particularly scary is the part of the speech which states, "It is essential for the purpose of a fair trial that the prosecution disclose all relevant material within its possession, power or procurement to the defence." Obviously we all agree that all relevant materials should be being handed over. Counselling notes are not relevant material. This is the point we are making. To have these things just regurgitated back shows there is no development whatsoever in Fianna Fáil or the Government on the issue of violence against women and gender non-conforming people; it really does.

We have to say it is brilliant we have therapists here. It is brilliant we have had such activism on this issue. This has to be the start of a movement. We have to learn the lesson that any time anything has ever changed it has never come from within the system; it has always been through pressure from outside, through movements and grassroots campaigns, as we saw with repeal, marriage equality, gender recognition, the water charges and the defeating of austerity measures.

The Minister of State spoke about balance in his speech. What balance? Gender-based violence is practically a non-prosecuted crime. If we add up the statistics, the reporting is so minuscule and then there is the attrition rate of people who drop out while they wait the four to five years for their case to come to court. They go through all the barriers, and there are so many barriers that we cannot even imagine, and they get through them, and then potentially their therapy can be used. It is an non-prosecuted crime. There is no balance to be rejigged towards the defence. It is really bad to hear these tropes again and again.

The Minister of State said we cannot have a blanket ban. Why not? These things should not even be in the equation. The Minister of State spoke about putting it into the hands of a judge. Why should it be in the hands of judge? We have seen many judges come out with dreadful rulings. Let us talk real. We saw Natasha O'Brien. She wanted to come this evening but because of the debate being put back until later she could not do so. She was ready to be here tonight. Natasha O'Brien had to speak out about the judge after her case.

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