Criminal Justice (International Cooperation on Electronic Evidence and Other Matters) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West

I move amendment No. 10:
In page 21, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following:
“(9) Counselling records in relation to sexual offence trials shall not be processed under this Act.”.
We have had extensive engagement with the Minister in recent weeks in the Dáil regarding the disclosure of counselling notes in trials. I appreciate that the Minister has moved somewhat on the issue but I will take the opportunity to ask him to move further and meet the needs as outlined by survivors with whom we have engaged. This gets to the core of the concerns regarding this Bill. It involves what happens with a court case in another jurisdiction regarding an alleged offence when it is known that a counsellor has electronic records of counselling notes. An order is received by a service provider in Ireland that provides online storage facilities. Is the Minister of State willing to stand over legal protection for survivors of domestic, sexual or gender-based violence that is less than what we provide for people in Ireland? The Minister of State might say that the legal systems here are different and have different safeguards and that would be true but is she willing to stand over whichever legal system in the EU may provide the least amount of protection to survivors-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17