Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit agus gabhaim buíochas leis as ucht an méid atá ráite aige. Ar son ghrúpa Fhine Gael an tSeanaid, cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille. Is ábhar an-tábhachtach ar fad é. In the course of this debate, there has been a lot of discussion about the differences between people smuggling and people trafficking. They are not mutually exclusive. We recognise that. This Bill represents an extremely important modernisation of the law on people smuggling in Ireland. It is a mark of progress that we would put in place legislation that is clear and identifies the level at which we must engage with people to ensure that it is feasible for the authorities in this jurisdiction to obtain convictions in regard to activities that all of us can agree are dangerous and regressive in all of their respects.

The difference between people smuggling and people trafficking covers a whole spectrum of activities from giving a lift from Dublin to Belfast to a person who does not have a visa to enter the UK to the horrible tragedy that we saw in the Minister of State's constituency in terms of the deaths of people on arrival into Rosslare Port. We know throughout the world that this happens on a scale that is disgusting and abhorrent. We know also that the Irish Naval Service has been involved in fantastic activities in the Mediterranean in terms of rescuing people who in no uncertain terms are being trafficked, albeit dressed up as smuggling. The spectrum involved there is not all the subject of the Bill.

I agree with much of what Senator Mullen said about the human rights difficulties that we face as a country, both diplomatically and politically. He is correct. We deal with China as we must on many spheres. On the one hand we have many businesses that do well in conducting business with their Chinese counterparts and working through China. I understand that.On the other hand, we see from China a spectrum of activity that belies the image of a member of the international community that respects the rule of law. This includes the imposition on the leaving certificate course of the simplified characters used in Beijing and mainland China and the exclusion of the traditional characters used in places like Taiwan, for example. It runs from that cultural side of the spectrum to the appalling behaviour of the Chinese Government towards Lithuania, our EU colleague and a country not dissimilar from ours with respect to population etc. Lithuania, it seems, made the grave error of doing what Beijing perceives as a slight by recognising a Taiwan representational office in Vilnius rather than a Taipei representational office. This has resulted in the recalling of the Chinese ambassador to Lithuania from Vilnius and the expulsion of the Lithuanian ambassador to China. China is continuing to attack Lithuania in an ongoing online campaign. I hope we as a country will stand up to that kind of behaviour because it will not be long before it will come knocking on our door. As European colleagues, we must stand in solidarity with Lithuania in terms of the treatment it is receiving there.

As I said, that is not the subject of this Bill and probably is not for this debate but it is an important issue nonetheless and something we should all have in the back of our minds. With respect to this Bill, and the people smuggling aspects of it, there is, as I said, a spectrum of activity covered by this Bill, from giving a lift over a border to somebody not entitled to cross it to the absolutely intentional and deliberate attempt to circumvent the laws of entry into this or any other country. I notice the wide, transnational application of the Bill, which is welcome. This is not something that exists only within the Republic of Ireland or the Irish jurisdiction. It is appropriate that we should extend this to the protocol countries under the UN protocol, to our European neighbours and to the other countries defined in, I think, Part 3 of the Bill. We must address this not because there are parts of that spectrum that might be perceived to be not particularly harmful to the person who is smuggled but to recognise that the overall effect of having an unchecked regime whereby people can be smuggled in and out of a country is massively dangerous. It is dangerous to the countries involved and is certainly dangerous to the people being smuggled. Very often these people are being smuggled at their express wish or choice but the problem is once they operate in that space, which is illegal, they are massively vulnerable to being exploited. That is where you fall into that people-trafficking vein.

The danger is it is so easy to switch from being smuggled to being trafficked. Senator Mullen has mentioned before somebody who has given him information and people who are working. These are probably people we encounter in our daily lives and we are unaware of the plight they are facing. It is entirely appropriate we address this issue head-on because it is so easy for people who might decide they want to come to Ireland or any other state to come here but find once they arrive it is not at all the way they imagined it would be and that more importantly, their personal position is not what they imagined it would be. They might end up working off debts or being put in a place where they are simply not free and they do not avail of the rights they should have as people living in this country. In that regard, I particularly acknowledge that the Bill specifically avoids the criminalisation of people who have been smuggled. That is tremendously important, for a number of reasons. First, the simple justice of the fact the person who has been smuggled is not the person we should be targeting from a prosecutorial view. We should be looking at the people who are smuggling them. These people are profiteering from the disadvantage, the misery, in some cases, and the real difficulty of those they smuggle. Thus it is entirely appropriate we mark clearly that the latter are not the targets. The other really important reason we do that is to let them know that when they come here, by whatever means, that they are free to report the fact they were smuggled to authorities here. There should be no fear in any person who has been brought to this country illegally that he or she cannot go the authorities and report what has happened. In tandem with not criminalising them, we must put in place a scheme that means they will not suffer through deportation or at least that they will get a very sympathetic hearing from the authorities here in relation to their ongoing status in this country, rather than the fear they might have that by reporting the smuggling activity, they will end up back where they started. They may want to stay here and we should have a sympathetic ear for people in that position.

In that regard, I wish to address some of the definitions in the Bill and ask some questions which the Minister of State may have the opportunity to answer. Section 6(1) refers to the intentional nature of smuggling a person and I understand that entirely. However, section 6(1)(b) refers to a reasonable belief on the part of the person doing the smuggling. Again, I do not have a difficulty with that. I wonder whether there is room in that section for some reference to recklessness. Is there a danger a person who does engage in this intentionally might be able to say it was not intentional? Is there then a difficulty for the State in prosecutorial terms in establishing that intent and are we binding our hands by requiring the prosecution to establish intent rather than recklessness? Recklessness is used in the Bill in section 14(8)(c)(i) in relation to statements made to enforcement officers. Again, I have no difficulty with that but I wonder whether there a place for it in the offences provided for in section 6 as well, to ensure there is a clear identification of the fact that in a prosecution, the prosecution does not have to establish that intent, which can sometimes be difficult but to put before the court a clear demonstration that there is an issue in respect of whether they should have known.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate the Minister of State on it. I look forward to its passage.