Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As he can understand, when things are out of your power, when you have spent so long working on something and then hand it over and when you have to give over and suspend all power over or hand in what happens next, it is difficult. As it is such groundbreaking legislation, there was always a concern there would be enough pushback on it for it not to happen. I wish to acknowledge the Minister, his officials and Department for initially supporting the legislation that I brought through the House and then expanding on it in terms of their own research and seeing how important it was that we continue to see it through and for it to become law in Ireland.

Last night, there were already communications coming to me from the UK, America and Canada. Everyone seemed to be well-tuned to what was happening in the Dáil last night. It is globally groundbreaking legislation.The intention of the legislation should always be that, if a victim does ask for an NDA, that the NDA protects the victim. It is never about protecting a perpetrator. Obviously an NDA hands the power to the victim whether he or she wants to enter into one or not, but also ensures that other people are not expected to collude in any shape or form with an NDA. That is something that needs to be worked out when people enter into an NDA because we not want people to give references for people who have potentially committed any sort of crime or engaged in harassment or bullying. It is important that we do not then pass those people on to unsuspecting other services or sectors.

The use of NDAs has never been about people, human life and the things that happen to us. NDAs were ever only about protecting patents and trade secrets. They were never supposed to be used as a tool, or a further extension, of silence and abuse. We have moved really far to end that practice but also to set the moral standard for other people in terms of when they do try to coerce or suggest to somebody that they should enter an NDA, that it is a silencing tool and should be seen as bad practice. We should expect solicitors and union representatives all to be so good at their jobs that they always negotiate in the best interests of their client or the person who they are there to support in the long term, not just in the immediate moment.

I thank the Minister and the Department. I also thank the staff in my office for their work on this right from the drafting of the legislation. Seb McAteer from my office is here today. He drafted the original legislation that has been passed in this House. My office has continued to have lots of global meetings. Last year, we had a great event attended by Zelda Perkins, who was the first person to break the Harvey Weinstein NDA. We have a big event here in Ireland that was well attended by people who could not contribute on the day but were there because they had signed NDAs and could never share their stories. I hope that today they see that in the sharing of their experiences with myself and the Department over the past few years, they have created a monumental change in how NDAs are viewed and how NDAs should be used. I welcome the amendments tabled here today and appreciate the way in which we have worked over the last couple of years.