Category: Justice

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Senator Jillian van Turnhout warmly welcomes Minister for Children and Youth Affairs’ announcement to end the detention of 16 and 17 year old boys in St. Patrick’s Institution in the next two years.

Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Frances Fitzgerald TD, announced today that capital funding in the region of €50 million over a three year period has been secured to end the detention of children under the adult prison regime in St. Patrick’s Institution in the next two years.

As of 1 May 2012 all newly remanded or sentenced 16 year olds will be detained in the children’s detention facilities in Oberstown and within two years all those under 18 in need of detention will be sent to dedicated child-specific facilities on the Oberstown campus.

In response to today’s announcement Senator van Turnhout said “I have made my concerns about the continued detention of children in the adult prison regime of St. Patrick’s Institution well known both on the Seanad floor and as a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children. The current detention system for children violates a number of Ireland’s international human rights obligations and is one of the State’s most glaring violations of children’s rights. I warmly welcome today’s announcement from Minister Frances Fitzgerald TD to ensure that as of 1 May a new approach to children’s detention will be implemented. This significant progress illustrates the real value and potential of the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs. I believe it demonstrates a positive shift in the Government’s policy for children that has the best interests of the child at its heart. I reiterate my call to the Minister to extend the remit of the Ombudsman for Children to allow complaints from children held in prison and detention on the same basis as children detained elsewhere”.

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Order of Business, 25 January 2012

25th January 2012

I encourage my colleagues to participate in the Private Members’ debate on the motion proposed by the Independent group on disability support and services. I appeal to Members to support the motion as proposed. This is an important debate and I hope the House will support the very clear action points in the motion. It will be led by my colleague, Senator Mary Ann O’Brien.

I recall the Private Members’ motion by the Independent group on 12 October 2011 on criminalising the purchase of sex in Ireland. We are three months into the six-month period indicated by the Minister for Justice and Equality for public consultation. This matter was raised in the Dáil last week by Deputy Kevin Humphreys and the Minister advised that the consultation process would be ready before the end of January. However, I am concerned by the inclusion of a caveat in the Minister’s reply that the publication of the document before the end of January is subject to resources, having regard to compelling priorities including legislative priorities. I fully appreciate the financial times we are in and I know that the Government needs to prioritise its work. However, the debate we had on 12 October 2011 showed a clear link between prostitution and trafficking, particularly in respect of trafficking children for sexual exploitation. The protection of women and children from sexual exploitation must be a Government priority. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Justice and Equality to confirm that the consultation document will be published and that the consultation process will commence without further delay.

I also wish to raise whistleblower legislation. The situation of Louise Bayliss has been raised by the media in recent days. Coincidentally, she met me last Tuesday to discuss lone parents, before she heard the news. She is an advocate who has spoken out and we need to remember the five women she spoke out about, who were being put into a closed unit. How do we know how many other people are in that situation if we do not produce whistleblowing legislation? There should also be independent funding for advocacy organisations. This does not concern new funding but the basis of funding for the organisations working as advocates.

Finally, I wish to raise Children’s Rights Alliance report card launched on Monday. Last week, I called for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to come to the House and I suggest to the House that this is an excellent basis for discussion. The Government has failed in the report card in regard to St. Patrick’s institution and the continued detention of children in an adult prison regime. The effects of budget 2012 on lone parents and large families and the implications for child poverty were highlighted. The Government got the best grade any Government has received in four years but that does not mean it is good enough. We need to do more. It is a wide-ranging report which looks at all aspects of a child’s life and would provide an excellent foundation for a debate.

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Order of Business, 18 January 2012

I join in the sympathies expressed by colleagues. Will the Leader call on the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, to come to the House to address several issues of concern to Members? There is agreement in regard to child protection and adoption, but several outstanding issues are of great concern to me. The first of these relates to the promised referendum on children’s rights. Concern has been expressed by various children’s organisations and in the media that the amendment to the Constitution (children’s referendum) Bill is included under section C of the Government’s legislative programme rather than as a priority Bill under section A. Is this a reflection of a reduced commitment to holding the referendum without delay? I hope the Minister can provide an assurance to the House that the referendum will take place in 2012 and that she will update us and involve us in the thinking and the process to date.

The delay in the construction of the national children’s detention centre is a cause of great concern to me and others in this House. The Government, like its predecessors, is acutely aware that the continued detention of children under the adult regime at St. Patrick’s Institution is one of the State’s most glaring violations of human rights and children’s rights. This goes back to the Whitaker report of 1985; I will not rehearse all that has been said on the subject since. The programme for Government includes a firm commitment to end the practice of sending children to St. Patrick’s Institution. An announcement regarding the promised detention centre was expected in the capital expenditure programme, but I was extremely disappointed to discover it was not included. I understand the situation now is that responsibility for building the detention centre has been passed to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and that the project must be redrawn in light of current economic circumstances. I wish to ask the Minister for a timeline for the redrawing of the costs of the project and an indication of when the project is expected to be completed. She should inform the House of the interim measures her Department intends to put in place to ensure the boys in question are more suitably accommodated until such time as the national detention centre is operational.

I am also concerned about the proposed new agency to oversee children and family services and how it will be decoupled from the Health Service Executive. I understand plans are being drawn up in this regard; it is important that this House be involved in the development of those plans. The report of the child death review panel was lodged with the Minister before Christmas. Will the Leader ask the Minister to outline the panel’s findings to this House? Instead of doing so at a media launch, the Minister should give us an opportunity to discuss how we can prevent future deaths of children in the care of the State.

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Order of Business, 8 December 2011

It was reported in today’s The Irish Times that the former Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality, Seán Aylward, was appointed to the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture. I am flabbergasted by this decision. The committee carries out periodic visits, at any time and without notice, to any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty. Its purpose is to prevent ill-treatment of individuals who are deprived of their liberty in Europe. According to its website, members of the committee are independent and impartial experts from a variety of backgrounds, including lawyers, medical doctors and specialists in prison and police matters. When the Government came into power it made a wise decision to publicly advertise for membership of this committee through the Department of Justice and Equality. The advertisement stated that members of the committee would be chosen from candidates of high moral character who are known for their competence in the field of human rights or professional experience in the areas covered by the convention.

After examination of the applications by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, three candidates were put forward by the Department, namely, Seán Aylward, Dr. Mary Rogan and Donncha O’Connell.

I will mention no more names. The nominations were considered by the Parliamentary Assembly but the Committee of Ministers, which comprises ambassadors from members states, did not choose the Assembly’s preferred candidate. This obsession with finding positions for former Secretaries General has to stop.

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Order of Business, 16 November 2011

16th November 2011

I echo the congratulations to the Irish team, which has given us all a boost. Perhaps we would like to skip over the budget and get straight to the European matches. Unfortunately, we cannot.

I have concerns at the kite flying that is happening. Vulnerable hard-pressed families are reading headlines every day and wondering what will happen. We should all be careful with our comments.

I echo what Senator Bacik said about St. Patrick’s Institution and seeking a debate in the House. It is of extreme concern and a gross violation of our human rights record. For the sake of the children in vulnerable situations we need to act as soon as possible.

Today, I raise the issue of transition year students. Most of us are aware of the transition year programme which promotes the personal, social, vocational and educational development of students and prepares them for their role as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society.

Recently, I received an application from a transition year student to work for one week in Leinster House as part of the work experience programme. I was informed that this is not possible. What better way to achieve these goals than by allowing young people to experience a working environment through one of the work experience programmes offered by most schools that conduct the transition year programme? The Houses of the Oireachtas lacks any dedicated structure to facilitate students who wish to experience the working life of the Parliament. Work experience is available for second level students with members of parliament in the European Parliament and the British Houses of Parliament. Why can we not do it here? Even closer to home, Dublin City Council offers second level work experience.

This experience is extremely valuable, would give students an insight into our work and would help them understand what we are doing here. I call on the Leader and the House to examine ways in which the Seanad could put in place a one week programme once a year to provide transition year students with an opportunity to listen to some of our key debates and a chance to partially shadow a Senator. The programme could be open to a lottery and provide to a limited number of transition year students an opportunity to see what we do. I ask that this be given serious consideration and I would be happy to give any support and assistance I can.

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Order of Business, 15 November 2011

15th November 2011

I also wish to address the infrastructure and capital investment plan, which I believe needs to be debated in this House. In line with the questions put forward by Senator Bacik, I also wish to raise the question of St. Patrick’s Institution. As Senator Bacik has stated, the Government has committed in the programme for Government to end the practice of sending children to the aforementioned institution and has put forward the new national children’s detention facility on the Oberstown campus in Lusk as a solution to the unacceptable and untenable position that obtains at present. For example, in 2010, 221 children aged between 16 and 17 were committed to adult prisons, of whom 219 were boys who were committed to St. Patrick’s Institution. On average, that facility has 40 boys in detention.

In response to a Dáil question on 20 September last on the plans to proceed with the development of the first phase of the said project, the Minister of Justice and Equality stated the Office of Public Works was “in the process of preparing the required tender documentation for the project” and that the Government’s decision on funding, approval for which is required before tendering for the construction phase, would be informed by the outcome of the Government’s capital expenditure review. Unfortunately, when this review was published, it was silent on what would happen.

Therefore, given that development of the Oberstown project is now the responsibility of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, I ask that the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, come into the House to clarify the position, to outline her plans on how to proceed with the project as a matter of urgency, to confirm whether one can expect the project to be completed by mid-2013, as was the commitment given by the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in December 2009, and to address formally the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan, in her press release this morning.

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Human Trafficking and Prostitution – Motion

12th October 2011

I welcome the Minister of State. The impetus for this motion has been the tremendous work of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign to end prostitution and combat sex trafficking in Ireland. I commend the campaign on highlighting the intrinsic link between the demand for prostitution and the trafficking of women and girls to meet this demand. The majority of members of Turn Off the Red Light are civil society groups and NGOs that have direct experience of the devastating effects of prostitution on women, children and men throughout Ireland. These devastating effects are physical, such as sexually transmitted infections, injuries sustained as a result of beatings and rapes, gynaecological problems owing to multiple terminations of pregnancy and many other health conditions relating to prostitution. There are also mental and emotional injuries deeply embedded in the psyche of sex workers and victims of trafficking which are likely to be carried throughout their lives.

Senators Zappone and Mac Conghail have excellently outlined the views of our group, which I fully support. Therefore, in my intervention I will focus on the situation for children. As devastating as these effects are on adults, the impact is almost unimaginable for children and child victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. I have researched with interest some of the arguments against criminalising the purchase of sex in Ireland and I find myself wholly unconvinced by them. One argument contends that criminalising the purchase of sex in an effort to curb prostitution violates a sex worker’s right to exercise self-determination over her own body. I must respectfully disagree. It is my belief that when the complex layers of how and why women and men find themselves selling their bodies for sexual gratification of others are peeled away, their paths into prostitution did not start with the simple exercise of their right to self-determination of their bodies. For those who argue that prostitution is an issue of consent, I would ask these people to be mindful that the age identified internationally for entry into prostitution is 14, an age at which consent cannot be given.

I would also like to highlight the situation for young homeless people. Focus Ireland estimates that there are as many as 1,500 young people under the age of 18 who are homeless each year in Ireland, 18% of whom are unaccompanied and one quarter of whom are under 12. There is inadequate resourcing in this area and there are an insufficient number of places for children in safe, sheltered accommodation. Some are said to be forced into prostitution. An increase in substance abuse among homeless youths, especially males, has also seen an increased recourse to prostitution and there is evidence to suggest that boys as young as 13 are involved in prostitution in Dublin city.

Separated children or unaccompanied minors are under 18 years of age, outside their country of origin and separated from both of their parents or their previous legal customary primary care giver. Separated children are an extremely vulnerable group owing to their status, the fact they may have experienced war and violence, and the danger that they have been trafficked into Ireland for sexual exploitation. There have been improvements in the situation for separated children in Ireland under the Ryan report implementation plan, and measures have been taken, such as DNA identification, to tackle false family reunifications.

However, the instances of children going missing from care are of deep concern. This morning in this very Chamber, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs told us that there are 16 cases of children missing in Ireland still outstanding in 2010 alone, and 11 of those are unaccompanied minors. There is strong anecdotal evidence that a number of these children could have been trafficked into prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation. In September 2011, the Children’s Rights Alliance submitted to the Department of Justice and Equality’s anti-human trafficking unit collated case studies of suspected and confirmed child victims of trafficking in Ireland.

I will now briefly outline these cases which paint a picture of dreadful exploitation. They include the following: a 15-year-old Somali rescued from a brothel in 2006 having been trafficked into Ireland; a 16-year-old Nigerian girl who arrived to Ireland as a separated child in 2009 and was enticed out of HSE residential care by a man who later got her involved in prostitution; and a 16-year-old girl from Burundi, held captive in a house in County Louth and abused. She was taken from her village in Africa at the age of 12 and introduced into sex slavery in different countries before being trafficked to Ireland for more sexual exploitation.
I have also heard dreadful accounts by an NGO, which were subsequently documented, of eastern European girls as young as 14 being trafficked to Ireland, brutally and systematically raped over a number of days to “break them in” and then shipped off to various brothels around Ireland. This intolerable situation is my motivation for fully supporting the motion proposed by the Independent Group.

As Senator Zappone has already mentioned, the sex industry in Ireland is extremely lucrative. Children continue to be victims of prostitution and trafficking because it is good business for organised criminals and traffickers. After much research into this issue I firmly believe that legislation is needed. I understand that the Minister says we need a wider public debate. I would like to say I am reassured by what I have heard both from the Minister and the Government side, but I am not. We have heard a lot of nice words and good sentiments but I would like to have seen much more detail in what is being put before us. I note the six-month timeframe that is given to us and our group must still decide whether we will move this motion to a vote. We will certainly not be going away from this issue, however, because every day that passes there is a possibility of women and children being forced further into sexual exploitation in Ireland. We have to take action. We may have to allow the Minister of State some time, but it is a very short time because this is about human beings and people’s lives.

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Senators call for ban on purchase of sex to curb prostitution and trafficking

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday 12th of October***

SENATORS CALL FOR BAN ON PURCHASE OF SEX TO CURB PROSTITUTION AND TRAFFICKING

The Independent Senators (Taoiseach’s Nominees) will put a motion before the Seanad today proposing the Government introduce legislation criminalising the purchase of sex in order to curb prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The Independents describe prostitution in Ireland as a sophisticated and lucrative industry with more than 1000 women made available for paid sex on a daily basis. The Criminal Assets Bureau has valued the Irish sex industry at €250 million a year. The Independents believe that current laws on prostitution are ambiguous and insufficient. The motion notes evidence from Sweden and Norway which shows that criminal sanction for the purchase of sex are a proven deterrent to prostitution and consequently to trafficking and also to organised crime. Swedish police have stated that the Swedish ban on the purchase of sex acts as a barrier to human trafficking.

A 2009 report, commissioned by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, found that prostitution and trafficking are inextricably linked. 91 women and 11 children were trafficked into Ireland in 2007/2008 for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Senator Katherine Zappone stated, “We recognise that the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a modern form of slavery and a form of human rights abuse. International and Irish research documents time and again acknowledge characteristics of slavery, as it applies to sex trafficking and prostitution.”

Senator Jillian Van Turnhout added, “There is a reluctance to acknowledge that this very modern slave trade is happening here in Ireland. The evidence from child victims cannot be ignored any longer. Child trafficking is a problem at the heart of our communities, not just in our cities but in our towns and villages. It is imperative that we take all the steps necessary to tackle the trafficking of children in Ireland for sexual exploitation.”

The motion will be put before the Seanad at 5pm today. Coalition members from the Turn off the Red Light Campaign will be present in the visitor’s gallery for the debate.
ENDS

Note to Editor:
Independent Senators (Taoiseach’s Nominees) are: Jillian Van Turnhout, Katherine Zappone, Fiach MacConghail, Eamonn Coghlan, Martin McAleese, Mary-Ann O’Brien and Marie-Louise O’Donnell.

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Reporting of Lobbying in Criminal Legal Cases Bill 2011- Second Stage

21st September 2011

I am sorry I could not be here earlier, but I wish to support this Bill. It is a welcome initiative and I commend Senator Crown on bringing it forward. Having followed the discussion, I agree that elements of the Bill should be examined on Committee Stage, particularly concerning communications with the Judiciary, the Garda Síochána and the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Bill’s principle is that when and where they are made, communications should be transparent and publicly available. It is an important principle that warrants a statutory footing. This is a question of making parliamentarians, such as ourselves, accountable for the representations they make.

I strongly support the Bill although I hear people saying that while they accept it, it should be put aside for the time being. We should pass it on this Stage. We will have plenty of opportunity to make amendments, as appropriate, to ensure that we make ourselves accountable and act transparently, which is the intention of the Bill. I wish to support it.

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Order of Business, 20 July 2011

20th July 2011

I too take the opportunity to congratulate Senator Trevor Clochartaigh on his new addition. Here is another child whose rights we must fight for and I assure the Senator we will continue to do so.

I echo what Senator Darragh O’Brien said in regard to the European leaders summit. I am extremely concerned, as are many citizens, at the way in which Europe has dragged its feet and has not taken the necessary decisions to address the crisis. The latest signals are not encouraging in advance of tomorrows summit. When the Heads of State meet at an EU leaders summit, we expect action. We should send a clear message in this regard.

I join Senator Ivana Bacik in congratulating Mrs. Justice Susan Denham’s appointment as the first female Chief Justice in the history of the State. She is an excellent role model and it is encouraging that the two most senior legal positions in the State are now occupied by women. We are in safe hands for the future.

We have taken a welcome step forward in the provision of a new national children’s hospital with the Minister’s approval of submissions of plans to An Bord Pleanala. I was very much involved in the debate on the location of the new hospital and have come to the position that we need a national children’s hospital and must put our full support behind it. This House must do everything it can to support that process, notwithstanding the many obstacles that will undoubtedly be put in the way.

I remind Members of the Private Members’ motion my colleagues and I will put forward this evening on the important issue of the social, personal and health education programme in schools. This programme incorporates the relationship and sexuality education programme which, despite being a mandatory part of the curriculum, evidence suggests many schools are failing to implement. I encourage Members to contribute to the debate.