Court Procedures
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
============================================================

Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West

The right to a fair trial includes the complainant as well. Does the Minister agree? I am assuming he does but that is never factored in. Gender-based violence is becoming a completely unpunished offence in this and other countries. That is the reality. Only 5% of people disclose to anyone or report it to gardaí. Why does the Minister think that is the case? It is because things like this remain on the books and are routinely used in our courts.
The Minister said he listened but one would think he would at least meet the group to discuss its proposal, into which it put a lot of work. Has he listened, for example, to the therapist who had her front door knocked on by four gardaí looking for counselling notes? How is this in any way just? The Minister used the phrase "best interests" of survivors. He could have laid down a much higher bar than he did. For example, it is very broad to say "interests of justice" or "an issue in a trial". That can be interpreted in so many ways and it is not dealing with the central issue, which is that people are having to choose between therapy and a trial. Nothing is going to change with this proposal.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14