Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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143. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the position regarding adopting the Optional Protocols to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. [50197/21]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has three Optional Protocols:

- an Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict;

- an Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and

- an Optional Protocol on a communications procedure.

Ireland has ratified the first and third protocols in 2002 and 2014 respectively. Ireland signed the Second Optional Protocol on the 7th September 2000 but it has not yet been ratified.

A number of significant pieces of legislation had to be passed to ensure that Ireland is in complete compliance with the obligations of the Second Optional Protocol. The enactment of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 and the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017 constituted key steps on the pathway to the ratification of this Optional Protocol.

I am strongly committed to the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. My Department made a comprehensive submission to the Attorney General’s Office in 2019 seeking confirmation as to whether Ireland was in a position to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The advice received from the AGO stated that while Ireland is largely compliant with the terms of the Protocol, there are some outstanding issues that need to be resolved before the State can proceed to ratification. My Department has been liaising closely with the Department of Justice as the outstanding issues identified by the AGO fall within their remit.

The main outstanding issues relate to determining what if any legislative measures may need to be put in place to ensure that the full range of offences covered by the Protocol can be prosecuted on an organised and transnational basis in line with Article 3.1 of the Protocol.

There is close engagement between the Department of Justice and my Department while we await their determination on the legislative requirements. Once the Department of Justice has concluded this process, the next step will involve the development of measures that may be necessary to enable ratification.