Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is disingenuous of the Minister of State to try to give the impression that anybody suggested prostitution is a glorious career. Nobody I heard in the Chamber suggested that. Perhaps it is because he does not have a better argument to defend against the point that was being made to him, which he ignored. I support fully the view that a majority of women who decide to resort to prostitution are very vulnerable, often due to financial necessity, drug addiction, or human trafficking, which is heinous. However, there is a coterie of women for whom it is a choice. Anybody who has watched this on various programmes internationally or here, or who has read reports on it, knows that there are women who make considerable money from it and it is a choice. While I agree fully with criminalising and charging the purchasers right across the board, that coterie who do it as a choice and do not have the defence of being drug addicts, trafficked, pimped or coerced should face the same rigours of the law as the men. It can be the converse too. It can be a gender-neutral situation, because there are male prostitutes also. In those scenarios, it is wrong that one party participating is being charged with a criminal offence while the other person is regarded as immune from any criminal prosecution. That is fundamentally wrong and it borders on sexism.