Results 11,681-11,700 of 15,389 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: The challenge with the amendments here is that we are proposing to delete this section. Perhaps this could be accepted on a later Stage.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: It is something I can look at before Report Stage. My intention is that, hopefully, we would take Report Stage pretty soon but that still allows time to look at the potential for this to be included as part of the new section that is being proposed. I need to follow up and check what the implications might be or any knock-on impact on legislation elsewhere.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: On amendment No. 8, the challenge is that the words “his or her” appear in the Bill numerous times so we are talking about quite a number of subsequent changes because of that, and it does not necessarily change the intent of the Bill or how the legislation will operate. That is probably the biggest challenge in that it has a knock-on impact on many other sections of the Bill....

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: I want to see if that would be possible in terms of just amending it at an earlier stage of the Bill. I will commit to look at that to see if it is possible, as I do not know. As I said, it has a knock-on impact on the rest of the Bill so I cannot give a commitment on it. I understand where the Deputy is coming from and the intention behind the amendment.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: I want to clarify what section we are dealing with.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: Looking at the legislation that currently exists, the language in the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 is quite a strong definition of harassment that covers stalking as well. What we are trying to do here is strengthen that even further by amending this legislation so harassment is not just to a person but about a person, and where there is a particularly severe element, or...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: It highlights that under the Domestic Violence Act it is not just about physical violence but this is another way, as the Deputy has said, of highlighting that point.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: My understanding is that the offences themselves and what a person does is very clearly defined and set out in the harassment legislation under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The introduction of the title of stalking does not actually change the Act itself and what a person necessarily has to do to be convicted. I do not have in front of me the number of cases or times...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: That offence which is connected to the bail laws, which the Deputy has referred to, currently stands for this particular offence.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: On that point, we could have further engagement with the Minister, Deputy Martin, in her development of legislation and ensure this point is highlighted as an area of concern, as Deputy Carroll Mac Neill has outlined.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: I think we need to move amendment No. 46, in the new section.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: Amendment No. 46 relates to the new section to replace section 3. Briefly, I am proposing that the harassment offence contained in section 3 of the Bill, as initiated, should be deleted as a number of issues have been identified with the approach taken on the new offence which I have briefly touched on in the conversations I have had. This is essentially to replace the section but it...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: I will be moving that amendment.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: What I am proposing to do in amending section 40 of the Domestic Violence Act 2018 does exactly what the Deputy is looking to do there in that amendment, namely ensure where a person is in a relationship or has been in a relationship that this would be an aggravating factor. We are doing that through amending the Domestic Violence Act. I returned to the point that I made earlier to Deputy...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: I would also say that amendment No. 14 is quite prescriptive in its parts 1 and 2, and is actually too prescriptive because it means one has to prove all of this whereas what we are proposing is that the offence has occurred and somebody has been injured by it occurring; having to prove all of this makes it that little bit more difficult for the person who is bringing the charge.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: For the information of members, I am referring to is section 4 of amendment No. 14, parts (b) (i) and (ii) with reference to the relationship between the defendant and the fact that they would have to have "made use of personal information, correspondence or records about the other person,". The sense is that this is too prescriptive and makes it more difficult as one has to prove all of...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: Yes, it is included in the Bill. There is a proposal in this amendment that the defendant and the person against whom the offence was committed are known to each other. That in itself narrows what I am proposing, in the sense that there is a requirement one knows somebody. What we are proposing here is that there are two separate offences, namely, that a person puts out an intimate image...

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: Yes. It would put more of an onus to prove.

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: Does the Deputy mean if they are in a relationship or not?

Select Committee on Justice and Equality: Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2020)

Helen McEntee: It is absolutely the case that it will be taken as an aggravating factor that somebody has been or is still in a relationship.