Patrick Costello
Question:1020. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Justice the number of charges and convictions under section 5 of the Protections for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998 in the past ten years. [56618/23]
View answerWednesday, 17 January 2024
Questions (1020)
Written answers
Section 3 of the Protections for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998 provides protection from civil litigation for a person who, acting reasonably and in good faith, reports or communicates that there are reasonable grounds for believing that a child is a victim of abuse or neglect or that a child's health, development or welfare is at risk. It should be specifically noted that the phraseology of this section reflects similar provisions in the Child Care Act, 1991 which provide the present statutory basis for the making of care orders and supervision orders under that Act.
The protection from civil litigation for a reporter of child abuse or neglect under the section specifically applies to those who "in good faith" make such report to an "appropriate authority" or to an "appropriate person".
The good faith requirement directly derives from the recommendation of the Law Reform Commission on this issue which was intended to ensure that the legislation it recommended did not provide immunity from civil liability to those who made malicious and vexatious allegations of child abuse for which there were no reasonable grounds.
It is important that such legislation does not provide a licence to make knowingly false allegations of abuse and the technical phraseology of the section is designed to ensure no such difficulty can arise.
Section 5 provides for an offence where false statements are knowingly made.
For an offence to be proven, it would be necessary to show that the person who made the report knew it to be false. For summary proceedings, it would also be necessary to commence the proceedings within two years of the offence being committed or within two years of evidence of the offence coming to light.
As the Deputy will be aware, records of charges under any given legislation are a matter for An Garda Síochána.
To be of assistance, I contacted An Garda Síochána who conducted a search of the PULSE database for any charge or summons created over the past 10 years which referenced the legislation in question, and none were identified.