Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is hard and the Senators have dealt with the issue with great compassion, sensitivity and kindness. This is not often seen in politics and it is great to see it for such a difficult topic.

I was talking with a former Seanad colleague, now Deputy Bacik, and she told me how in 1998 she was doing research for the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre around this, which resulted in previous legislation on the right of legal representation for complainants in sex offence trials where the defence seeks to produce evidence of prior sexual experience. We still see stuff around that but it is a conversation that has required women over the years to be constantly trying to push for care and compassionate change that does not re-traumatise or make things more difficult.

When we talk about re-victimisation or re-traumatisation, it is as though it is only at this point in the trial that this happens. I can certainly speak from a very personal experience that it happens too when one hears jokes, when there is a scene on TV, when we read about what is happening to the women being raped in Ukraine, or when one sees a social media pile-on that denies a victim's testimony and says that it is not true. It is never just a re-victimisation at one point of a trial. It is something that consistently happens. If a person has been raped, it is a part of their life. I hope that beyond this it becomes something in how we actually talk about rape victims, how it is portrayed in the media and how it is portrayed on TV. I believe this can be dealt with in a much more compassionate and sensitive way. I hope when we see legislation such as this, it challenges those people who talk about it in a way that is not the most compassionate or the most thoughtful.

We had a really constructive, respectful and highly personal discussion last November, when the report from the justice committee came out on victims' testimony in cases of rape and sexual assault. It is great that in less than five months, we have seen legislation seeking to provide for the need to protect victims against re-victimisation.I hope we will continue this progress to make our justice system more cognisant of the needs of victims.

Senator Doherty talked about changing a culture that puts victims on trial and that is a key aspect of this issue. When I hear about glowing character references, as have been mentioned, and about a victim having to sit and listen to someone speak so highly of someone who might have done one of the most horrific acts to another person, or even to many people, I cannot comprehend what that would be like because I chose not to go through that. I have spoken previously in the Chamber about how I initiated the process, reported a matter to the Garda, went to the sexual assault treatment unit and did everything I had to do, but before I had even walked out the door, a garda outlined to me what was, in effect, a character reference for the person. Someone had told the garda that the person had never done anything like that before, in response to which I thought to myself that he had done the previous night. Before I had even got out the door, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to go through the process, even if the DPP were to decide to prosecute the case, which seemed unlikely in the circumstances. There was no way I would be able to go through a trial and there was no way, after a male garda having said to me that the person would not have done what I had reported he had done, that I would be able to sit there and listen to what would, inevitably, involve lots of people saying he did not do it and that it was my fault and asking whether I was sure it had happened.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for those victims to have to sit through those character references. As someone who has been through this experience and supported friends through the trial process, I cannot imagine having to listen to people defend someone who did that and defend that person's good name, and then to hear them argue that the person deserves a lighter sentence or just a slap on the wrist for doing something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives. We have to live with the scars on our bodies and with the experience for the rest of our lives.

I commend the Bill’s sponsors on taking an initiative on this issue. As I said, I do not know how people can go through the process. I wish I had had the strength to do it, whereby I would be able to stand in the Chamber and say I had done it such that other people might feel able to do it, but I was not able to at the time. I hope the Bill will send a message to people to say they are going to be believed, and to say this farce of people lining up and saying what a great person a defendant is after the defendant has done such a terrible thing will end. I hope we will have a justice system based on evidence, truth, innocence and guilt, that will not put a victim through what I cannot imagine going through.