David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I note from the amendment that the prosecutor "shall inform the court of the outcome of that assessment at the beginning of the trial of the offence at the latest". There would be no choice. It would have to happen. Section 18 provides that the prosecution shall have regard to the assessment report in determining what, if any, special measures to apply for. The prosecution will be in a position to determine, in all the circumstances at the time of the trial, whether the special measures identified in the assessment are in the interests of the victim and, if so, what information the court needs to be aware of to support the application for a particular special measure. The Bill has been very carefully drafted to maintain a separation between the assessments and the court to ensure the assessments can comprehensibly assess the needs of the victim without any fear of sensitive personal information being released to the defence or potentially prejudicial information being given to the court. These are serious matters. The legislation has been drafted in a very careful way to protect the victim. If the Senators are insisting that the prosecutor "shall" inform the court of the outcome of an assessment, it would be giving a lot of information to the defence which it might not be in its bests interest to have. It could be detrimental to the prosecution and the victim and end up doing the opposite of what the Senators intend. As this is very serious, I ask the Senators not to press the amendment in order to allow the prosecution to have a free hand in making decisions. I ask them not to impose what they propose in this legislation because, let us not forget, the prosecution will be acting on behalf of the victim. The prosecution has to be free to decide what the court needs to be aware of and to support the application for a particular special measure.

It is not clear what the words "outcome of that assessment" mean. Do they mean a special protection measure is being put in place? What is the particular protection measure? Why is it being done? One is into all kinds of stuff that one does not really need to be into. We want to keep the matters separate. I, therefore, plead with the Senators to have second thoughts on the amendment.