Foilsithe
An t-eolas is déanaí
Teanga: Níl leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil.
The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD, today (Wednesday 28 October) published ‘Supporting A Victim’s Journey: A Plan to Help Victims and Vulnerable Witnesses in Sexual Violence Cases’.
The Minister’s plan outlines how she will reform the system of investigating and prosecuting sexual crimes to create a victim centred approach.
Supporting A Victim’s Journey details over 50 individual reforms; assigns responsibility within government for each reform and also sets ambitious timelines for their completion.
Minister McEntee said:
"When a person becomes the victim of a terrible crime, I want them to have confidence that the criminal justice system, and all those who work within it, will treat them with dignity and empathy and will support them at every turn."
Tackling sexual, domestic and gender based violence is a key priority for Minister McEntee and the actions in Supporting A Victim’s Journey will place the victim of the centre of the criminal justice process from the moment a crime is committed.
Among the actions which will be implemented are training programmes across the Justice Sector to better support victims. These include:
The national rollout of the DPSUs was a recommendation of the O’Malley Review of the Protections for Vulnerable Witnesses in the Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Offences, which Minister McEntee published in August.
The Minister promised to bring forward a detailed implementation plan for the recommendations made by Tom O’Malley and Supporting A Victim’s Journey fulfils Minister McEntee’s promise to publish such a plan within weeks.
As well as the national rollout of DPSUs, other actions already taken by the Minister include securing €2.3 million in the recent budget to fund the reforms outlined in Supporting A Victim’s Journey.
This includes providing free legal advice to victims of sexual assault even in instances where there is no prosecution.
The actions in Supporting A Victim’s Journey will improve how the criminal justice system work for, supports and engages with the victim in very practical ways from the moment a crime is committed through the investigation, prosecution and trial of the offence and beyond, regardless of the verdict.
Minister McEntee added:
"The delivery targets for the recommendations are ambitious but I am determined we will achieve them because vulnerable victims deserve a system that supports and works for them.
"This report is not the final say on how better we can support victims. ‘Supporting A Victim’s Journey’ is a living document and I will establish a consultative body to ensure organisations and groups working with victims continue to have an input into how we will implement change."
Other key actions highlighted by the Minister include:
ENDS
The full Implementation Plan is available here.
Supporting a Victim's Journey - A plan to help victims and vulnerable witnesses in sexual violence cases
On 7 September 2018, the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan, published Terms of Reference for the review of the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences. The Minister also announced that Tom O’Malley BL would chair the working group tasked with undertaking the review. This Review was prompted by widely shared concerns about the experiences of vulnerable witnesses in criminal proceedings for sexual offences. In particular, there was unease in the wake of a trial in Belfast Crown Court in 2018, which has come to be known as the ‘Belfast rugby rape trial’.
The then Minister requested the Review to examine key aspects of the criminal justice process as it relates to vulnerable witnesses, and to identify ways in which the treatment of such witnesses might be improved.
The review was published on 6 August 2020 and contains 52 actions with four overarching recommendations:
At the publication of the O’Malley Review, Minister McEntee indicated that the implementation plan, to be brought to government within weeks, would include timelines for delivery.
An implementation group was created to consider the recommendations contained in the review and the necessary steps required to effectuate their implementation. The group comprised representatives from: the Department of Justice, the Legal Aid Board, the Department of Education, an Garda Síochána, the Department of Children, Disability, Equality and Integration, the Department of Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Courts Service, the Judicial Council, the Probation Service and the Department of Health.
Following publication of the Implementation Plan, the Minister will convene and chair an Implementation Oversight Group of all relevant Departments and agencies to drive implementation of the agreed actions. This will include putting arrangements in place for regular consultations with the NGO sector in that process.