Seanad debates

Thursday, 21 January 2016

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015: Report and Final Stages

 

10:30 am

Photo of Paschal MooneyPaschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----and from Longford, as well, of course. I am thinking of the Longford-Westmeath constituency perhaps more than anything else. As I say, we know some of the visitors in the Visitors Gallery and hope they are enjoying their tour.

On my party's amendment on disclosure, amendment No. 41, as I interpret it this goes fundamentally to the protection of a complainant. If one can envisage a scenario where somebody has been sexually assaulted and is disoriented and traumatised, and goes to the local Garda station to make a complaint, I would like to clarify whether the Minister is aware of the operational procedures in those circumstances. In terms of the person's legal rights, for example, would the gardaí, who, it is a given, would be very sympathetic to the individual, advise the person that she should seek legal advice or might they, as seems to be suggested, persuade the victim at that early stage in the proceedings prior to a judicial proceedings to waive her rights to disclosure.

I am leaping a little further ahead here. Say, for example, it was a high profile individual. My initial reaction about this would have been that, of course, one would seek legal advice and if one were going to complain one would go with a solicitor to the local station, but there are those who may not. Perhaps, because it might be in the immediate aftermath of this traumatic experience, it may not be a considered judgment after a number of days. Also, perhaps the individual was a high profile or known person. Then there is the possibility - I am treading carefully here because, sadly, it has happened - that the complaint might be leaked to the media and that they would give the name of the individual because the right to non-disclosure may have been waived. I am only positing these scenarios. I am not saying that they will happen, but they may.

Clearly the Minister is careful to ensure that in drafting legislation, particularly this specific aspect, it will ultimately protect the complainant from any further trauma. It is in that context that we have put this amendment down, that there should be at a minimum a legal requirement that when a complainant goes to make a complaint to the local gardaí or whatever another process is used to make the complaint that then leads to judicial proceedings and the complainant's anonymity is legally protected if she so wishes. As Senators will be aware, and again I am treading carefully here, there are those who, despite the trauma, which I as a man cannot comprehend or imagine, have allowed their name to go into the public domain in order to ensure that the person who raped them will not get away with it and that it might warn off other women or make them aware, or encourage other women to come forward, many of whom, although I do not have the statistics, sadly, to do not.

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