Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. This is as relevant to my party as it is to the parties of all colleagues. The partnership that exists between Young Fine Gael, members of which are in the Gallery today, and the little bit older Fine Gael that exists in the Seanad has made for an incredible relationship over recent years. This Bill passing is the outcome of the campaign conducted by Young Fine Gael over the past number of months, as is the building of young people's confidence to report these things to An Garda Síochána and university authorities. Young Fine Gael's work has genuinely and significantly contributed to that and I thank its members for the opportunity to work with our youth wing. The culmination of today's work is firmly in their corner. They should take a bow and I thank them.

The experiences the Minister has just described were never as evident as they were during the summer. When we first brought this Bill forward, the State's response was that we did not need separate stand-alone legislation and that there was not as serious a number of crimes as we were indicating. That has come full circle because of the number of people who have come forward, not least of whom is a young lady in my own hometown whose life has been destroyed by the experience she went through. It has also affected her parents, her family and her friends. When the Minister talks about the lack of confidence in being able to engage in normal things, this young lady will have to go through years of counselling to get to a level of normality in her own confidence. When I say that we need a stand-alone offence, notwithstanding the crimes that are currently on the Statute Book, I mean that we need to make the process as easy and transparent as possible for people who are victims of this crime.

When we started off, I was mostly thinking of young women, probably because I have two of them at home, but, after people telling us of their experiences over the summer, I now understand that I also have to be mindful of my two young men at home and mind them because there have been far more instances of young men having their drinks spiked by sexual predators than I imagined heretofore.

With regard to progressing this Bill, am I now to go ahead and seek to introduce this Bill in the Dáil as a Fine Gael colleague's Private Member's Bill or does the Minister intend to include this stand-alone legislation in a miscellaneous provisions Bill? I thank my colleagues for their time, hard work and engagement.