Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

While I welcome the statement by the Minister that he will at least consider the legislation, I can tell him, from speaking to victims and survivors with real-life experience, that there is a legislative gap in place. What this means in reality is that for many survivors of sexual violence their fear intensifies the longer the sentence of the person convicted of the offence goes on. They fear that on the release of the perpetrator they could end up having an encounter. They have told me about the impact this has on their lives and how they feel they are on a countdown to the release. In some cases these are people who have exerted control over them for many years as part of the abuse. In some cases there is genuine fear that a perpetrator would seek retribution.

Does the Minister agree we need to empower victims and survivors of sexual violence and help them as much as possible to have a sense of safety and security to rebuild their lives? At the moment of the court case there is an opportunity to put in place a protection that will last beyond release.

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