Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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Question 476: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will respond to the official report from the Welsh Assembly Government specifically naming Ireland as a route for bringing illicit human cargo into the United Kingdom. [21882/07]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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On 28th August, the Welsh Assembly Government issued a press statement announcing that it was to publish draft guidance for professionals with responsibility for the care and protection of children, aimed at making them more aware of the increasing trafficking in persons and helping to safeguard children who may have been trafficked. In that press statement, it was stated that there is an increasing trend for children to arrive via smaller airports in the UK or in Wales by ferry from Ireland.

In the actual draft guidance, there is one sentence referring to Ireland. It reads "Some children arrive in Wales by ferry from Ireland". My officials contacted the Children's health and social services directorate of the Welsh Assembly Government for a full report on any issues that they were aware of, in relation to Ireland. We were informed that this sentence was included based solely on anecdotal evidence provided by a Welsh NGO.

In an article in Wales on Sunday on 2 September 2007, Deputy Health Minister Gwenda Thomas, who launched the Assembly Guidance for Professionals, was quoted as saying she had seen no evidence of child trafficking through Wales.

The Assembly Guidance is based on a document produced by the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). The document "A Scoping Project on Child Trafficking in the UK" was published in June 2007. This document also mentions Ireland as a Transit country. My officials recently spoke with Ms. Aarti Kapoor, the Author of the Report for CEOP, who said that there was anecdotal evidence of trafficking through Ireland in one of the 330 cases of child trafficking examined in the study. To quote Ms. Kapoor fairly, she went on to say that she believes there is potential for trafficking through Ireland but that she has not seen any evidence of it.

I am not aware of anywhere in either of these reports where Ireland is named as a major route for child trafficking, as was claimed in some coverage.

That being said, I am not complacent about the trafficking of either children or adults into Ireland or into other jurisdictions via Ireland. Legislation creating an offence of recruiting, transporting, transferring to another person, harbouring or knowingly arranging or facilitating the entry into, travel within or departure from the State of a person for the specific purpose of the trafficked person's sexual or labour exploitation or removal of his or her organs is at present being drafted in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and will be published shortly.

In addition, it is intended that the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill will, subject to enactment, provide the necessary framework for addressing the immigration aspects of trafficking so as to comply with the relevant protection provisions in the Council of Europe Convention. In particular, in the context of the treatment of victims, it is intended that a framework will be put in place whereby a victim of trafficking can be afforded an immediate period of recovery and reflection in the State and also, in circumstances where he or she wishes to participate in any criminal proceedings in the matter, a further period of residence to enable him or her to do so.

The legislation will be the first in a series of measures to be rolled out over the next year.