Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 248: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if her attention has been drawn to the fact that people permanently resident here who originate from countries that practice female genital mutilation take their children to their home countries to undergo the procedure and then return here; and her views on whether it is necessary to address loopholes in the provisions of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 which leave children unprotected from the practice of female genital mutilation while abroad. [40064/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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Legal advice which I obtained in 2004 strongly indicated that Female Genital Mutilation would constitute an offence under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. In September 2006, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in its concluding observations on Ireland's second periodic report urged Ireland to continue its efforts to end the practice of Female Genital Mutilation through, inter alia, prohibiting it by law. I am currently examining the possibility of introducing specific legislation to ban Female Genital Mutilation in the context of UNCRC's recommendations.