Briefing on Prostitution and Sex-Trafficking in Ireland - as hosted by Sen. Ivana Bacik

Briefing on Prostitution and Sex-Trafficking in Ireland - as hosted by Sen. Ivana Bacik

  I commend the "RTE Investigates" team for its excellent and very powerful documentary, which many colleagues saw last night, on the sex trade in Ireland - in other words, prostitution and sex trafficking. It had some very disturbing findings. We are debating changes to prostitution law under sections 20 and 21 of the Criminal Law (Sex Offences) Bill 2015.  In light of that, I have invited the makers of the "RTE Investigates" documentary to come to the AV room in Leinster House tomorrow at 12.30 p.m. to brief us on their findings. I have also asked a couple of independent experts to speak in more general terms about the way in which the law can impact on change in behaviour in terms of prostitution. The links between prostitution and organised crime were made explicit in last night's documentary and confirmed the findings we made in the justice committee report which led to the change in the law. I welcome that and invite colleagues to attend.

The subject of the briefing will be the changes to prostitution law to be made in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015, in the context of the findings in the Primetime documentary. These findings are of interest to us as legislators, as we await Committee stage of the Bill in the Seanad on 11th December next.

Speakers at the briefing will be: Oonagh Smyth and David Doran from the RTE PrimeTime Investigates team; Linda Latham of the Women's Health Service, and independent researcher Monica O’Connor, co-author of the important Kelleher report on prostitution.

Copy and paste link to RTE Investigates programme. http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/rte-investigates-30003696/10499497/