David Norris (Independent)

I thank Senator Bacik for allowing me to take part in this debate and for sharing her time with me. This Bill is very welcome but is it not an appalling comment on human nature that such a Bill has to be introduced, that there are persons among us, and around the globe, who are prepared to treat other human beings merely as commodities to be bought and sold and ground into slavery of the most degrading and awful kind?

I share some of Senator Bacik's reservations. The long title of the Bill states that it is "an Act to give effect ... in part, to the United Nations Protocol". What parts were left out? Are they the parts to which Senator Bacik referred when she spoke about the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill? Senator O'Donovan addressed that matter very sensitively. It is appalling to think of people being deported out of this country having already suffered a trauma, although there is an interval of 30 or 40 days, with the possibility of three months. In the light of the trauma, however, it is not appropriate to further punish these women and, occasionally, youths and boys, given that they have been so badly treated.

The Minister of State has established a think-tank in the Department, the so-called high level group. Will this be financed? Does it meet the requirements for a co-ordinating agency to address directly, immediately and effectively, on a daily basis, the question of trafficking? If not, that is what we need and we need to involve organisations such as Ruhama, of which I also approve.

Luckily I do not believe we are involved in the business of the removal of organs. That is happening all over the world. In a recent horrifying case in India a doctor was caught who had been involved in 800 such cases. The trafficking of persons generates £8 billion annually. Somewhere between 500,000 and 5 million people are involved. The Minister of State cites 800,000 but no one knows the actual figure.

One of the most significant elements of the Bill is the provision of protection for persons who are mentally impaired or suffering from a disorder of the mind or whatever the definition is. This is critical in the light of the Iranian case I have cited several times of a 16 year old mentally handicapped girl who was sentenced to death for not protecting herself vigorously enough against her rapists. That is shocking. I attended a conference last weekend, organised by the Bar Council, during which a recent Dutch case was quoted involving another 16 year old mentally handicapped girl who was not entitled to bring her rapist to court because being mentally impaired she could not make a complaint. This happened in Europe. Luckily the Council of Europe stepped in, through the European Court of Human Rights, and the case against Holland was found to be justified and the situation has been rectified. That shows the extraordinary vulnerability of such people.

We must provide more services to deal with people involved in this activity. The number may be small; the Minister of State says approximately 70 cases over the past seven years. The figure I have received is 90, which seems small but each case is an appalling tragedy for the person involved and it is a reproach to us as a society if any of these cases continue to exist. My figure of 90, or the Minister of State's 70, are only the ones we know about.

It is useful to put a human face on these figures. In 2004 an 18 year old eastern European woman was brought to the attention of the Garda when the neighbours called them to a house in Dublin. She was taken to hospital by ambulance. She had been beaten by a man at the house who had forced her to have sex with 200 men. She was six months pregnant by that man. She told the Garda that she had been taken by bus from eastern Europe to Spain, given a false Italian passport and trafficked to Ireland. That is the real human face of what has been happening in this country.

I came across a case in The Sligo Champion on 26 April 2006 in which a 17 year old west African girl was brought to the attention of the Garda in Sligo after working as a prostitute. It came to light that she was a minor and further investigation revealed she had been trafficked to this country specifically to be exploited by an organised prostitution ring.

The last case is by far the worst. It involved a north African minor whom the Garda had rescued from a brothel and was put into the care of the Health Service Executive, HSE, in Dublin. I believe I raised this case on the Order of Business some months ago. The HSE did not have adequate staff to look after her and she went missing from that centre within days. What is the fate of a woman such as that? That is why we need not just a ministerial think-tank but a clear, specific, target-orientated and well-funded group to implement the provisions of this Bill which, in conjunction with my colleagues, I welcome strongly.