Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

The message must not go out that we are somehow approaching this as a culturally sensitive issue. This is mutilation of young women and it is nothing more than a barbaric practice that must not be accepted in this country. The message must go out from these Houses that it is unacceptable and if there is any reason for a delay in dealing with it, it is because there are some complications with the legal system in this country but it is certainly not because we accept there may be some cultural issue involved.

I had hoped that the Minister of State, in her speech, would focus more on the difficulties she might have in implementing this legislation immediately. They are the sort of matters of which we should speak. For instance, is the problem that one parent in particular pushes this practice on a family or is there a wider community problem that pushes this on a family? Is the problem that if there are complications with this procedure, the young woman involved may not receive adequate medical care or may be afraid to go for adequate medical treatment? If there is one message we must send out, it is that this is an unacceptable practice in this country which will not be tolerated in any way, that the person we consider to be the one to be pursued is not the young woman involved but the person who consents to and carries out this crime, and that such individuals, whether they do it in this country or another, will remain answerable to the laws of this country for carrying out a serious assault.

In any reading of Irish law, mutilating a young woman is a serious crime which cannot be downgraded. We cannot even speak of downgrading this sort of crime by stating that it would somehow be considered in the same way as a brawl outside a pub on a Friday night to which a lesser charge applies. This is far more serious than that and that is how it must be approached. That is the sort of strong language I would expect from the Minister of State on this issue.

We must not treat this as something that is not that serious; it is incredibly serious. We must push for that sort of legislation and for that type of language when we speak about this to show we are taking this very seriously. We need to show we will not tolerate such practices in this country and that we want them stopped. We need to provide for the maximum charges to be brought against an individual who commits this heinous crime against a person who is under the protection of the State, whether in the country or not. We also need to ensure a person who consents to or forces this treatment will also be liable to prosecution, regardless of whether such consent is given in this country or outside of it. If the young woman is under the protection of the State, we must show we will give that sort of protection to her to the best of our ability. We need to speak in such terms to show our seriousness in this matter.