Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

In technical terms, the Seanad did not insist on one of the amendments, No. 1, that it made to the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill being agreed to by the Dáil. This is most unusual and I will briefly outline the details. On Committee Stage, the Seanad accepted amendments which criminalised soliciting or importuning a trafficked person for the purpose of prostitution. Since the substantive amendment made reference to a trafficked person, that expression then appeared in more than one section of the Bill. The Parliamentary Counsel therefore drafted a reference to a trafficked person into what was then section 2 of the Bill, the interpretation section.

On reconsideration the Parliamentary Counsel thought that the proper place in the Bill to define trafficked person for the purpose of the new section 6 was in section 6 itself. This involved the deletion of the definition of trafficked person from the interpretation section. This was done by way of amendment to the Committee Stage amendment on Report Stage in the Seanad but, unfortunately, due to a transcription error it was re-inserted into the Bill. This was obviously wrong and that is why the Dáil was informed that the Seanad was not insisting that the Dáil agree to it. The Dáil was effectively being asked to reject the amendment which defined trafficked person in the interpretation centre. It did that and the Seanad is now being asked not to insist on the Dáil accepting the amendment.