Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 14: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform his plans to make the purchase of sex an offence; if he has made any assessment of the present legislative developments in Sweden in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35357/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 makes it an offence to solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution. The offence can be committed by the prostitute, the client or a third party - a pimp, for example. The Act also provides for offences such as organising prostitution, coercing or compelling a person to be a prostitute, knowingly living on the earnings of a prostitute, or keeping or managing a brothel. In addition, the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 makes it an offence to knowingly solicit or importune a trafficked person, in any place, for the purpose of prostitution.

Currently under the criminal law in Ireland, it is not an offence, in itself, to sell sex. In general, it is not an offence to purchase sex either. The matter is currently being examined. Any proposal to amend the law in terms of criminalising the purchase of sex would require very careful consideration. During the Summer, the Swedish Government completed an evaluation of its 1999 legislation criminalising the purchase of sex. Sweden was the first country in the world to introduce such legislation and, more recently, Norway and Iceland have introduced similar bans.

The Dignity Project recently arranged a visit to Sweden to learn more about the evaluation and the delegation included representation from my Department. Dignity is an EU funded research project examining services provided to victims of human trafficking, with a view to replicating best practice models in partner countries, and is led by the Dublin Employment Pact and the Immigrant Council of Ireland. My Department's Anti-Human Trafficking Unit and the Garda National Immigration Bureau are partners with observer status. It is an inter-agency and inter-jurisdictional initiative with partners in Scotland, Spain and Lithuania. The visit to Stockholm took place from 14 to 16 September and my officials are preparing a report of the visit, including an assessment of the Swedish legislative provisions. I will examine the report in due course.