Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, the joint policing committee of Dublin City Council heard a report from Detective Inspector Daniel Kelly on human trafficking statistics and actions for 2021. He said that there were 44 victims recorded by the Garda, 28 of whom were female and 16 were male. Some 19 victims were identified as being of labour exploitation and 25 were victims of sexual exploitation. The Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, was before the Seanad in October. During that debate I raised the need for the public to be able to spot trafficking. We are in a time when there is a lot of platform engagement on services, including cleaning services. There are a lot of services that ordinary members of the public access and they have no idea whether the individual coming into their home, or otherwise, has been trafficked into the country and is obliged to labour for the profit of criminality. At the time, the Minister of State agreed with me that we needed a publicity campaign to educate the public on how to spot trafficking. The Garda was very reassuring that if person comes forward and has been a victim of trafficking, there is a whole suite of supports that come in around him or her. These include contacting immigration that such people are not to be deported, support for them with a stamp 4 permission, accommodation, medical care, education and training supports. There are supports that come in if an individual victim comes forward. It is really important that the members of the public are able to identify this, given that the anecdotal evidence suggests that we come across people who have been trafficked on a daily basis.