Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

There is an extraordinary story on the front page of The Irish Times and throughout the media today. It describes how in the Circuit Criminal Court in County Kerry, about 50 people, "mostly middle aged and elderly men", queued to shake hands and sympathise with a man convicted of rape. Can the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform come to the House and explain how this could happen in a courtroom? In the same court, the judge criticised a character statement given by a local parish priest. Mr. Justice McDonagh said the convicted man's actions gave the lie to the character statement. The judge went on to describe how the victim showed remarkable dignity and noted that little or no remorse had been shown by the man convicted of rape, nor an apology offered to the victim.

There is an excellent article written by Patsy McGarry in the same edition of The Irish Times about the case involving Mervyn Rundle and Fr. Thomas Naughton, who was sentenced yesterday. When Mr. Rundle sought to tell somebody about his abuse, the priest who dealt with him said "lies, lies, lies".

We have just had a debate on the Murphy report and the Ryan report. These reports documented the refusal of the officer class within the church to believe allegations made against one of their own. We rightly condemned what had happened and we will probably see the resignation of a bishop today. However, given today's news in the media, we must ask ourselves how we support victims of crime. How are they dealt with by our criminal justice system? This follows on from a report from the Rape Crisis Network entitled "Rape and Justice in Ireland". It stated that a victim in court is treated with very little respect. A victim in the report described the court as "a very lonely kind of place". That woman yesterday must have found the courtroom "a very lonely kind of place". The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform must come in to discuss these critical issues in our courts system and how it is failing victims.

This report follows on from the two reports we had been discussing, where people were not believed. The attitudes within the church led to a situation where people were not believed and the victims suffered. Very serious issues arise following yesterday's court case. I ask the Leader to ensure the Minister or Minister of State attend the House and give us an opportunity to discuss the issues raised by this incident.

Following on from the scenes witnessed yesterday at the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it is extraordinary to see that so many thousands of people who wanted to be part of this UN conference ended up on the streets being dealt with in the way that we saw by the Danish police. It is about time that we found ways of involving those who care about this topic in a more appropriate way than we saw on the streets of Copenhagen. I hope we have good news from Copenhagen over the next few days.