Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I fully accept Senator Alex White's assurance that he does not doubt our sincerity. However, I emphasise that the Government wishes to ensure that we get this legislation right so we can deal with the issues that every Member of the Oireachtas and society in general wants to see addressed. It is often a feature of our parliamentary procedures that legislation is enacted but the relevant regulations do not come into place for many years. As a result, the consequential establishment of boards or services to achieve the desired outcome do not follow on as quickly as they should.

In dealing with this reality, we are taking the holistic approach advocated by Senator Alex White. We have established an executive office within the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and a senior civil servant has been appointed as director. The work of that office is under way. Work is ongoing on the national action plan under a high level working group which can draft in expertise, seek views and work with statutory agencies, non-governmental organisations and others. That is extremely important.

We are obliged to take on board the advice of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and the Office of the Attorney General. That advice is that the measures we are putting before the House represent the best possible and most robust means to eliminate the evil that is this particular trade from our society and, consequentially, to protect the victims to the greatest extent possible. We are determined to ensure all the elements are in place, that alongside the legislation the other necessary measures are also implemented. We will ensure that our corpus of legislation and the associated administrative framework will meet the laudable objectives of the international conventions.