Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Deputy Lawless to the House. I thank the committee for its work to date on this report. I thank Senator Hoey for her testimony. I apologise to her on behalf of each and every one of us as elected Members that she was not looked after and that she did not get justice. Many of the 95% of women of who are being raped, sexually abused or sexually assaulted will not get justice, and that is absolutely scandalous. We should not stand by that today nor allow it to happen any day. It must not be the case they will get away with it. We must be stronger when it comes to prosecuting those who perpetrate these crimes on women.I thank Senator Hoey and Senator Ruane also who spoke earlier. As one can see from that testimony, trauma lives on. It never ever leaves you. Those moments of pain, together with those that follow afterwards, where the injustices have taken place and where those who you think will protect you but fail to do so, live on with you and hurt. Those scars are still visible.

There are 14 recommendations here and from those I would like to touch on four, with the leave of the House.

The rate of prosecutions and convictions of these crimes is much lower than that of other serious offences. There is a serious problem there and the recommendations look as if they will do good work in combating that. One of the main reasons for the level of underreporting is directly linked to the experience of victims throughout the justice process. Court systems are intrinsically adversarial. There is the conflict between rights and establishment of the truth via examination and cross-examination. Any way that this can be made less so, particularly for the victim of sexual assaults, should be readily and speedily pursued. This should lead to the minimisation of any re-traumatisation victims may experience during the trial process and as a result more victims would feel encouraged to come forward to report such crimes.

Another recommendation states that: “While the current law is quite comprehensive, it is spread among several statutes and consideration should be given to codifying all provisions into a single statute.” That is a good point and the codifying process through the Houses will allow an opportunity to implement some of the recommendations of the committee.

One is the experience of the cross-examination. Two is the delays in trials proceeding and three is the trial dates being postponed at the last minute, which can cause considerable distress to victims. The cross-examination process can be changed but how can delays and postponements be avoided? The recommendation on impact assessment may provide suggestions.

The appointment of additional judges may be necessary to help counter the inevitable delays in trial dates due to Covid-19 restrictions. Preliminary trial hearings have also been suggested.

Sometimes cross-examinations can criticise or refute the victim’s evidence and this can further re-traumatise the victims. This is true but how on earth is cross-examination supposed to work without criticising or refuting evidence?

The committee’s recommendation of specialised training for barristers on how to interact with vulnerable victims could be of benefit but could be less than desirable if it inhibited the ability of the barrister to defend the client appropriately.

Court refurbishment to add witness suites could be a good idea as I know for children witness suites are made available for them.

We should also look at what can be done now by way of staggered court entry times to avoid both parties encountering each other before the trial.

I welcome the report in favour of the consolidation of the legislation and the use of this opportunity to implement some of the recommendation of the committee.

A serious educational process must take place in the area of consent. We must also look at the area of online pornographic material and what that does to young men, how it affects men and their view of women and how they see women as sexualised objects. It is a serious issue in this country where young people and very young teenagers are accessing online pornographic material which represents a dehumanising of women. I acknowledge that this may also happen to men.

To all victims out there, we want you to come forward, we want you to be heard and we do believe you.