David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are many good things in this Bill. In particular, I am glad the Minister has looked at a situation to which I drew attention over many years, which was completely misunderstood, where people close in age, but underage, are engaged in sexual activity and are criminalised. For example, there was a case of a sexually experienced girl of 16 and a half years of age seducing a 14 year old boy and he was guilty of rape. That is absolute nonsense. I am glad a bit of sense is being introduced. I have to say with regard to this criminalisation of the purchase of sex, this is a combination of spiritual self-aggrandisement on the part of the people who are promoting it and voter appeal. That is what got it through in the North of Ireland. Some 98% of the sex workers in Northern Ireland, according to a really detailed impartial study by Queen's University of Belfast, which did not start off from a position as the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and the Swedish Government did, were completely against these proposals. Nothing was done to listen to them. I am not advocating prostitution but I am simply facing reality. In Sweden, a recent progress report in Gothenburg covering the years 2008-2010 showed an increase in trafficking of 106% and an increase in sexual services sold of 569%. With regard to the health risks, which have been so cavalierly dismissed here, The Lancet, in July 2014 had an article stating that full decriminalisation would stop HIV transmission by up to 40%. These are the realities. This is what we should be facing, not some sentimentalised notion.

In 2007, eight years after the law was passed in Sweden, the Swedish national police board conceded that it could not give an unambiguous answer to the question of whether prostitution has increased or decreased. This is from the Swedish authorities. At most, it could discern that street prostitution was slowly returning after swiftly disappearing in the wake of the law. I have a later press release from March 2010 in which the Swedish national police board stated that serious organised crime, including prostitution and trafficking, has increased in strength, power and complexity during the past decade - in other words, since the introduction of the Bill - and constitutes a serious social problem in Sweden and organised crime makes large amounts of money from the exploitation and trafficking of people under slave-like conditions. This was after the passage of the legislation.

Let us look at the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. Why did it neglect to examine a variety of social models and concentrate exclusively on the Swedish model? Why did it refuse to liaise with the New Zealand authorities where their policy has shown-----