I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, on which, as the Minister says, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration completed pre-legislative scrutiny in the latter part of last year. Úsáidfidh mé mo chuid ama den chuid is mó chun labhairt faoin ngá atá le deireadh a chur le húsáid nótaí comhairleoireachta i dtrialacha foréigin ghnéasaigh. During the pre-legislative scrutiny process and again today I have repeatedly made the point that the approach of the Department and the Minister of including such a wide range of unrelated, diverse and, in themselves sometimes very important, matters within a single miscellaneous Bill is less than ideal. Miscellaneous Bills should be used for limited and technical changes rather than a large range of complex issues, which in reality - as we saw during the PLS process - means there is not adequate time to fully scrutinise individual unrelated measures. This is particularly the case with this Bill, which deals with issues as diverse as the use of counselling notes in sexual violence trials; the use of incapacitant sprays in prisons; remote hearings in courts, outdoor seating for pubs and restaurants, and banning sex for rent. Given the limited time we have here this evening, I will not be able to deal with all of those issues comprehensively but there are a number of things on which I want to focus. When the justice committee considered this Bill during the pre-legislative scrutiny process, there was cross-party support in one instance and quite an amount of deliberation in respect of the calls for a complete and unconditional ban on the use of counselling records in sexual offence trials. Crucial to the committee reaching that decision was listening directly to what victims and survivors said to us. Survivors strongly asserted that this practice is deeply traumatising, causes severe psychological harm and that it heightens suicide risk. That is the evidence that was brought directly to our committee. Notably, professional mental health bodies have also called for an end to this practice. I commend all of those who have told their stories. I will single out just a couple of people - Hazel Behan and Paula Doyle. I thank them and all the others who told us their intimate, personal stories, so that, as legislators, we could understand the reality of what happens in our courts, not just the theory of the disclosure of counselling notes that are sought when they could have a relevant evidential value crucial to a fair trial, but the reality that disclosure is now considered the norm by defence teams. The reality is that rape victims who have taken the stand are being asked about unrelated and irrelevant matters, which they had discussed in intimate and deeply personal conversations with their counsellor. They have to deal with the impact of knowing the perpetrator can read their personal thoughts and feelings about what happened to them - not only their personal thoughts and feelings but the interpretation of those thoughts and feelings by a third party, namely, a counsellor. There is an impact on victims of having to hand over years of notes, and continuing to have to do so, while cases drag on if they continue to attend counselling. We heard very starkly that people now make a decision on whether to attend counselling or to pursue legal recourse. The submissions and evidence emphasised to committee members across all parties both how crucial counselling is to surviving and how the reality of allowing the disclosure of counselling notes actually impacts on victims. The committee listened and in our report we collectively called on the Minister to support a complete ban. The reality is that we all know it is wrong and unacceptable to add to the trauma of victims and survivors. While of course everyone accepts that we must protect the right to a fair trial in all cases, we have a duty to victims and survivors that must be put at the heart of how our system works. In all of the evidence our committee received and in all of the public discourse I have yet to come across a single case where divulging counselling notes was warranted in order to receive a fair trial. We deal with making the law here but victims and survivors are living with the impact of the laws we make. The legal process, we are told, is traumatising victims and survivors. That is widely acknowledged and therefore we need to address this issue as the legislation progresses. Court delays, which are a particular problem in sexual violence cases, mean that the process can drag on for years. We know that far too few cases of rape and sexual assault actually result in a successful prosecution. Many crimes of this nature - probably most of them - are not even reported. If we have a hostile justice system, which is what victims and survivors see when they hear about the disclosure of notes, it does not encourage us having a justice system that works. The disclosure of counselling notes compounds that trauma in a way that is very hard for any lay person to understand. Certainly, I do not think it would be possible for anyone who has not been through that process to fully understand what that means for victims and survivors. When they tell us that counselling saved their lives but they would not do it again if they knew their personal thoughts, worries and trauma would be handed over to the perpetrators, we have to listen. More importantly, we have to act. For those victims and survivors who are campaigning for a ban on the disclosure of counselling notes, some of whom are here in the Gallery today, the real truth is that this will not help them personally. They have been through the process. They have suffered the trauma. They are doing this and are here pleading with us not on their own behalf but on behalf of others. They are asking us to act and they must be commended on that. Again, I appeal to the Minister to listen and to bring forward or accept amendments on Committee Stage to provide for a complete ban on the disclosure of counselling notes. There are a number of other issues which I want to touch on briefly before concluding. The pre-legislative report from our committee had serious reservations in respect of the use of incapacitant spray in prisons and recommended that this proposal be dropped. Again, it appears we have not been listened to on this. I encourage anybody with an interest in this area to read or watch back the testimony of the Inspector of Prisons to the justice committee. He indicated that after more than 30 years of inspecting prisons across 46 member states of the Council of Europe, the current conditions for some people living in Irish prisons were among the worst he had seen. The inspector highlighted that at the start of this year there were 5,761 people in Irish prisons, which have a capacity of 4,718. That is an increase in 700 in the last 12 months and means we now have over 600 people sleeping on mattresses in Irish prisons. That means our prisons are not able to function as we want them to. This is on the Minister's watch and it is on the Government's watch. Rather than dealing with the serious overcrowding crisis which is making the conditions in prisons more dangerous for staff and prisoners alike, we are having this proposal instead. I have not been at all convinced that the introduction of a weapon into our prisons is the answer to the overcrowding crisis. The Bill also deals with the issue of sex for rent. I welcome that because the Government and successive governments have been far too slow in dealing with this issue. Concerns have been raised for years and we know some landlords have been exploiting vulnerable tenants. It is two and a half years since the Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing, Deputy Ó Broin, introduced a Bill that would ban sex for rent. The issue should have been dealt with before now. Likewise, I welcome the announcement that at some point during the process, and I hope it is early so that we have time to properly scrutinise it, a disregard will be allowed of historical convictions relating to same-sex activity. I welcome that. I commend my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, who has long campaigned for legislation on this. Again, I ask for it to be done as quickly as possible. Finally, I want to address the fact that this Bill amends the Schedule to the Bail Act 1997. It adds the offences of coercive control and forced marriage, in both cases under the Domestic Violence Act 2018, to the Schedule to the Bail Act. Many people will be disappointed by the fact that this does not add section 33 of the Domestic Violence Act, which relates to breaches of domestic violence court orders, to the Schedule. While to do this would require the maximum penalty on conviction to be raised to five years, this could and should have been done as well because it is something that has been raised with me by those in the legal profession working in the field. It is also one of the recommendations in the report prepared by Lorcan Staines SC and published in November. More generally, I put on record that I hope the Minister will very speedily enact the other recommendations of that report. I will leave that for now.

Sentiment score: -0.06

Hear, hear.

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