Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 November 2016
100. Deputy Josepha Madigan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if there have been any convictions for female genital mutilation since the enactment of criminal legislation through the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2012; if so, if she will provide relevant statistics; and if not, the reason there have been no or few convictions through this legislation. [35562/16]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware, under the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998, management of the courts is the responsibility of the Courts Service which is independent in exercising its functions, which include the provision of information on the courts system.
However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and the Courts Service has informed me that the data in respect of the offence specified by the Deputy is not available and could only be retrieved by way of a manual examination of each individual court record. As I am sure the Deputy will appreciate, this would require the expenditure of a disproportionate amount of staff time and resources and it is therefore not possible to provide the detail sought.
The Deputy will also appreciate that the question of prosecuting under a particular legislative provision is a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide on independently, based on the evidence available from Garda investigations, and I have no role in this regard.
