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

I have listened carefully and I do think the amendments have merit. They are worthy of consideration and there is no doubt about that. However, as drafted, there is a risk they could lead to inconsistent treatment of people in the same circumstances. We must give a lot of consideration to avoid unintended consequences or even the constitutionality of it. A better place to look at this would be in the criminal evidence Bill, and examine in a comprehensive way the points raised here, including those by Senator Bacik. The Senators have raised some very interesting points but they need to be teased out more. We will do this and examine it. I am not making a big issue of the technical flaws but they are there. At this stage, I cannot accept the amendments because of this.

The main points we make are the unintended consequences and treating people in the same circumstances in different ways, whereby we have two adults of the same age and one can give evidence by video link and the other cannot. There are issues that need to be thought through and teased out. I take the points Senator Higgins made very well, and I thank her for them, with respect to children reaching 18, but there is also the point that before they are ready to come forward pressure is put on child victims to make a formal complaint at an earlier time in order to avail of the enhanced rights. There might be something also happening on that side of it. This is complicated enough. I thank the Senators for raising the issue and debating it, but we need to come back to it in the criminal evidence Bill.