Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This may help what the Minister sees as a straw man to become clearer. There is a time to be specific about requirements and not just to hope for the best. If right now people on the street were asked if a person assaults another person and leaves them unconscious on the street, should it be mandatory that some custodial sentence would be served, everybody would say that is a no-brainer. However, as we know, with the best will in the world, people to whom we entrust certain aspects of the State's business do not reach the standard that now, retrospectively, we say should have been reached. It is the issue everybody is talking about. How did it happened that somebody could commit a serious assault of the kind we are all horrified and transfixed by, yet was not given a custodial sentence? That is why we sometimes need to be specific in law. That is why we need to say that whatever else, a convicted sex abuser shall not be allowed in the door on this issue. It does not in any way fetter the ability of the regulator to have regard to other issues of welfare. That is a completely nonsensical response from the Government.

The issues we have looked at here are too serious. We have spoken at length about the exploitation of women involved in surrogacy and we will undoubtedly return to that. However, here we have been talking about children who are at the receiving end of all of this legislation and more should be done. I do not suggest for a minute that the Minister does not care about the possibility of the wrong people getting access to these services, but I am certainly saying that he is not doing enough to prevent the possibility of that happening.