Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank Senator Hoey for sharing her story. I am sorry that this country failed her and thousands of women and men throughout the country. I am deeply moved and humbled to be in the Chamber with her today. I thank her for her bravery. It seems condescending to thank her for her bravery. I am blown away. I thank her for sharing her story, because it will make a huge difference to people.

To follow on from that, I must say that this report is most important. This issue deeply impacts people. It affects their lives and our lives. It affects our families, brothers, sisters, daughters, mothers and colleagues. This country has failed women and victims. We see, time and again, that this country is not a country for victims. According to the report, only 10% of victims report incidents of rape. Are we surprised, given that the system makes criminals out of victims and ignores them? Are we surprised, given that when a measly 10% of victims show the bravery to go to our Garda stations to report a crime and take the stand, 95% of perpetrators get let off?

I wish to take the Chair of the committee up on one of his comments. In his contribution, he stated that "checks and balances" are required in all proceedings. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, will look at the evidence and then decide whether to bring a case. Before the Chair and the committee talk about vexatious complaints, I want to see whether there is evidence of such complaints. Given that only 10% of assault victims report these crimes, which is very low, if any research is done on vexatious claims of rape and assault, I imagine it will show that the number of such claims is incredibly insignificant and small. I ask the Chair to roll back on that attitude. We hear of the difficulties and trauma that are experienced by people when they go through the legal system. They will not go through the legal system just for the sake of it and to bring someone down.That is not what people do. You are not going to make yourself into a criminal. You are not going to say you were raped or assaulted just to make someone look bad in a vexatious claim because it is clearly very hard to report a crime.

I will go into some of the recommendations. I very much support this and our having a debate in the House on the work of the committee, because I am not on that committee and was not present at those debates, so this is a very good opportunity. Ensuring there is separate legal representation for victims is important in looking after them every step along the way. We all know rape is a most heinous crime. It is on your deepest and most intimate person. We must change how the courts system looks at this and how we interact with the courts system. We must respect this crime is of the most intimate nature and look after the victim at every step along the way. We must ensure it is not adversarial because our courts are adversarial. We have grown up with a patriarchal, adversarial system and we need to row back on that. There are many recommendations for how people should be able to report crimes and give evidence in court proceedings. This needs to be looked at. We must look at the victim, at their person and at their trauma. At every step along the way a person should meet someone who is trained in trauma-informed care. People who work in the Garda station, the gardaí and the administrative staff in court all need to have trauma-informed training.

I wish to highlight another issue. My attitude to many things is that prevention is better than cure. We should be working on preventing crimes. The best way to prevent crime and mitigate this is to educate people on the dignity of a person and of a body and about consent. I would say consent is not a political statement as Senator Mullen has spoken about. It is about protecting yourself, protecting other people and educating people about their bodies and about what is right and wrong. "Yes" means "Yes" and "No" means "No", and unless you hear a "Yes", it is an automatic "No". That is not about politics. That is not about religion. That is just about respect and understanding of people's right to their own bodily integrity. Furthermore, on prevention being better than cure, if 95% of cases do not end in conviction, people are saying to themselves they will get away with this. If you rape someone, you will more than likely get away with it in this country. I suggest 90% are probably not going to report it and people are probably going to get away with it. We need to crack down. We need to start saying "Yes" and speeding up our courts system. We need to get rid of those delays, because unless we start convicting people for the wrongs they are doing to victims, we are not going to see any change.

As a final point, the medical and counselling records have no place in a rape trial, nor does a person's clothing. I am wearing a short skirt today. If I get raped tonight, is that integral to the case? Does that have any relation to my person at all? No, it does not. How I feel or how I interacted with my counsellor has no place in a court. I thank the Acting Chair and again thank Senator Hoey.