Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and commend the Government on bringing this Bill forward. As other Senators have said, particular credit is due to Senator Bacik and the Labour Party for bringing forward this important issue just over a year ago in this House. It is hard to believe that between 100 and 140 million women in the world may have undergone female genital mutilation. It is a truly scandalous state of affairs and it is right and proper that Ireland would move to have specific legislation prohibiting this practice and any involvement with it.

In recognising and congratulating Senator Bacik for her initiative on this issue, although she and I have often come from different places philosophically on a range of issues concerning human dignity, it is an issue which can unite people of goodwill who seek out the common good and vindicate the dignity of the human person at all stages of life. It is an absolutely vital issue for us to raise at this time.

I very much subscribe to the notion that this is about women's rights and reducing and tackling gender inequality. Those are important concepts and ones which have to be vindicated in our world and country. It is a pity that the word "dignity" is not present in the Minister's speech. We really need to rediscover the language of human dignity because female genital mutilation is first and foremost an attack on human dignity. It is an attack on women's rights and gender equality, but the fundamental issue is that it is an attack on human dignity.

This is a very interesting subject. There are many issues in the world today where we are invited to believe that certain practices are somehow acceptable because many people engage in them, have engaged in them or are they are important to certain cultures. This issue is pre-eminent in demonstrating to us that there are norms which have to be recognised and honoured across time and space.

The idea that it could ever be culturally acceptable to attack and violate a person's dignity and interfere with his or her bodily integrity in such a way as female genital mutilation is absolutely repulsive and must be so to any civilised society. That is why I would argue strongly that we infuse this debate with the language of human dignity.

I support and congratulate the Government and the Labour Party in dealing with the issue of extra territoriality. I recognise the sensitivity around dual criminality. In his speech to Minister said it is only in certain cases that one can go beyond the requirement that an act would be criminal in the country of origin of the perpetrator and of destination where the act is carried out.

I wonder whether we should make an exception in this case. In other words, we could provide that it would be a crime for an Irish citizen to carry out or to be in any way implicated or involved in female genital mutilation, even in countries where it is legal. I wonder what message it might send out to people to know that they would not be criminalised for carrying out such an action on the basis that it is legal in the country where they did it. If, for example, the issue involved child abuse in a country with inadequate child protection laws, none of us would have sympathy for a person who was criminalised for carrying out or being involved in an act of child abuse, notwithstanding that it was lawful to do so in the country in question.

Senator Ivana Bacik correctly raised the issue of mental health, one of the aspects of the legislation on which AkiDwA has raised questions. It would be useful if the Minister were to specify the reason a defence should be available, including in circumstances where the action is carried out to treat the mental health of the person concerned. In what circumstances could mental health be invoked for a procedure such that it should be protected?

While the House will have an opportunity to address the issues I raise on Committee Stage, I emphasise two points. The Minister has endorsed the preventive and proactive approach taken in the legislation and correctly noted that legislation is never sufficient. The law is a teacher and while it is important that legislation specifies what is and is not permissible, it must also be backed up by initiatives to ensure a cultural message is sent to all those resident here that female genital mutilation is an unacceptable practice. What plans does the Government have to reinforce the impact of this new law with cultural and educational initiatives in order that the law is seen to be well justified? I congratulate the Minister and Senator Bacik on their initiatives in introducing the Bill early in this term.