Alan Kelly: Backs Domestic Violence Register, Raises Concerns

Thank you Lascar Haorlach and I want to welcome Jason Poole and thank him for his incredible advocacy and work in pushing the legislature to this day. It's commendable and what you've done is you've changed Ireland as part of your work, so well done. It was tragic circumstances and terrible circumstances for you, but your advocacy has been incredible and you know a lot of the time inside here we kind of give out about one another and all of that, but I have to commend those who are in this space and including opposition spokespeople and the Minister for the manner in which this is actually being brought forward in a fairly timely manner and also those who have drafted the legislation as well. We will have some discussion tomorrow in relation to a few things, timelines, but I do believe collectively we're all on the one page and for the right reasons, so I just want to acknowledge that. This bill which is a critically important bill, it is a bill that I suppose is absolutely necessary, but it's not going to in the broader sense I suppose change the way in which we need to fight gender and domestic based violence. There's so much that needs to be done outside of this preventative educationally and I think also it commences really at a very early age in relation to education, in relation to the issues around consent and a lot of the changes from an education point of view, I'm glad to see there has been much progress in the last number of years, but it needs to be whole, it needs to be across everywhere, it needs to be in every factor of society that the message gets out that any form of this is completely and utterly unacceptable. In relation to the actual legislation itself, people should have the chance to know if their partner has a history of serious domestic violence, so this is absolutely sensible. It's probably something we should have dealt with a number of years ago. There have been different approaches to this issue in different jurisdictions, looking up what they did in the UK in relation to Claire's law for instance and across the EU there's been various different variations in relation to what we are bringing in here this week, but it is essential that we make sure that what has been done here is indeed the best most effective way forward as we see it within our own domestic law. In the UK Claire's law put in place a domestic violence disclosure scheme, DVDs, allowing police to both disclose and to proactively inform people of their partner's relevant past convictions, but the new register of domestic violence under this bill before us today differs from the UK precedent in really important ways. Being honest there are probably risks inherent either way and I'm sure those who drafted the legislation, the Minister with the Attorney General and also with his officials have gone through this and I can see the risks in both models. DVD schemes like Claire's law rely on police providing information that carries the possibility of delays which would be a real issue and something I'm sure the Minister was conscious of. Reporting the UK shows many women waiting hundreds of days for disclosure, which wouldn't be acceptable. They also typically require direct contact with police to initiate the process, something that can be a barrier particularly for those who are marginalised, vulnerable or in difficult situations, communications issues etc. So the efficacy of DVDs schemes has been questioned, so we understand why the Minister has gone down a different approach. When we were looking at this, when this has been discussed previously Minister, when we looked at it in committee and everything, you know, the variation in relation to approaches and the manner in which you were going to go about it was something that you know we were looking at, so we understand why you've gone down a different approach. However we would like to hear some reassurance from you on a couple of points. The information to be included on the register is by definition limited in nature relating only to serious convictions, but of course the absence of information shouldn't necessarily mean an absence of concern. So how to deal with this and how do we make sure that if someone finds their partner or prospective partner isn't listed, they don't take a false sense of security from that. And I suppose that is, I know a very very sensitive and a very difficult question to answer, but something that we need to discuss in here. How do we also ensure that the need for victims' consent isn't manipulated, with victims being put under pressure or coercion to not give their consent. This is a real question Minister, we need to make sure that the supports are in place to allow victims to safely make an independent informed decision. So in other words, what supports will be there to ensure that they feel that they have the capacity, that they have the strength, that they'll have the support to be able to do that. It's a really important, is there a wraparound, is there going to be other supports there that you might outline for that. My colleagues in the Shannon raised the issue of possible misidentification. We need to make sure this doesn't become open to abuse by vigilantes. We would have liked to see more details provided for in the register itself, ensuring that any possibility of misidentification is zero, but it will certainly have to be minimised. So how can we ensure that there aren't those who will try to do something like this to affect people's reputation. Most importantly, we must recognise that this is not a silver bullet, as I said previously. We need to see greater holistic approach across society and greater urgency in tackling domestic and gender-based violence. This Bill is very welcome Minister. I did raise those questions and similar to previous speakers, I will have questions in relation to timelines as well. But we will be supporting this Bill, supporting it wholeheartedly and looking forward to it being brought through the Dáil this week and enacted as soon as possible. Thank you.