Deputy Upton will recall my modest boast that the Sexual Offences (Jurisdiction) Act, 1996, was a Private Members' Bill which I introduced in Opposition on behalf of myself, Deputy Eoin Ryan and the Fianna Fáil Party.
Deputy Upton is concerned with that Act in his amendment. On Committee Stage, I asked him to resubmit his amendment on Report Stage so that there would be more opportunity to consider its feasibility. My initial reaction was that the Long Title to the Sexual Offences (Jurisdiction) Act, 1996, appeared to rule out the offences under sections 3 and 4 of this Bill. The Long Title refers to sexual acts involving children done by citizens. The offences contained in sections 3 and 4 of this Bill, namely trafficking and taking a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation and allowing a child to be used for the production of child pornography, are of a more indirect nature. In that regard, they are also different from the offences of the type listed in the Schedule to the 1996 Act.
Having examined the matter further, I am happy to tell the House I can accept the amendment. I can do so because the wording of the relevant section of the 1996 Act is broader than that contained in the Long Title in that it refers to a person doing an act against or involving a child. That wording is broad enough to encompass sections 3 and 4 of the Bill. Accordingly, the precise wording of section 2 of the 1996 Act makes Deputy Upton's amendment feasible.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and I hope he accepts that I am not just modest but generous as well. He can now speak of his contribution to this legislation with his accustomed modesty.
