Speech by Minister O'Callaghan at the launch of CCJ Protocol to expedite rape and murder cases for those under 18 years of age

Check against delivery

I am honoured and delighted to be here with you today to be part of this launch.

I want to start by commending Ms Justice Caroline Biggs who took on the task of putting this protocol together, and Mr Justice Paul McDermott who convenes the Criminal Justice Users’ Group which is where this initiative originated.

I note the participation of all the criminal justice agencies and the legal professional bodies in the work.

I am heartened to be told about the enthusiasm and commitment that all the agencies and bodies brought to the work.

This is a really positive example of how we can work together within the overall criminal justice system to bring about practical improvements that can make a profound positive difference.

There is no doubt that delays in trials involving children, whether as defendants or the accused, can have a real detrimental impact on the child’s life.

As a victim, the child may have had to wait for a period of years as things stand - at a time where every month counts in the life and in the development of a child - before the case comes to fruition.

The victim knows they will have to recount their evidence, their memory will be questioned and challenged, and all in the strange environment (to them) of a court room. This looms over them and dominates their life for those years, and there is no possibility of closure and moving on until the case has concluded.

In the case of a young defendant, a delay in the criminal investigation and trial process will mean – in a case that is subsequently proven and warrants detention – they will lose in whole or in part the opportunity of being sent to Oberstown rather than an adult prison.

We know that if child sexual offenders get appropriate intervention and access to rehabilitation, they are far less likely to reoffend in a sexual way.

Child offenders typically present with a complex range of issues: learning difficulties, mental health issues, difficult family and community backgrounds.

The offender may have been coerced or abused himself and is likely to have learnt what he knows about sex and consent from violent porn.

Oberstown – for the more serious offences – is best placed to work with the child offender during the formative teenage years to respond to all these challenges, and bring about real change in the child’s life and trajectory.

This rehabilitation work must start in childhood to have the best chance of being effective.

Minimising delays, and reducing the length of time criminal processes take, is in the best interest of defendants, victims and wider society.

The Protocol commits to ambitious deadlines for each actor in the criminal investigation and trial processes to complete their piece of the process so that a case can go to trial and be completed within a time limit of 52 weeks approximately.

The Protocol applies to the Central Criminal Courts of Justice and within the CCJ to cases of rape or murder involving victims and defendants under 18 years of age.

Tackling sexual offences and other forms of violence against women and children is a key priority for me and for my department.

The Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence commits to a wide range of actions to ensure that we better support and protect victims, and bring about a radical change in societal attitudes so as to give effect to the ambition of the Strategy as expressed in its strapline - Zero Tolerance.

We are putting very significant resources into implementation, and the Strategy is underpinned by the establishment of Cuan, the new DSGBV agency in place since January of last year.

The resources and that structural change and focus at the heart of Government is a demonstration of our commitment to deliver on a high level of ambition.

On legislation, a lot has been done already. The Strategy incorporates the work undertaken by Professor Tom O Malley, and my predecessor steered through legislation on pre-trial hearings, non-fatal strangulation and stalking.

Priority issues on my immediate agenda include the process around disclosure of counselling notes, and how we protect people at risk of serious harm in intimate relationships.

We are also examining how we take practical steps to support survivors in the immediate crisis situation following a domestic homicide, as well as putting in place a systematic review process for such cases, so that we learn lessons where possible that can combat these crimes happening in the future.

I want to dwell on one aspect of this overall work that my department and Cuan are leading on.

As a society we need to face up to the real harm that the pervasiveness of violent and abusive pornography has, especially on our young people.

While the number of children committing crimes has declined over the past decade, we are seeing a worrying increase in sexual crimes committed by children.

This is an area that requires a whole-of-government approach.

Cuan will be working with statutory partners including An Garda Síochána and Comisiún na Meán to develop considered whole-of-government strategies to respond to technology-facilitated sexual exploitation, to highlight the dangers, and to prevent children accessing pornography.

Under its mandate, Cuan will research, develop and subsequently disseminate materials which consider a continuum of relationships from healthy to unhealthy, and which will complement Department of Education initiatives in this area.

Cuan has been engaging with partners and stakeholders to understand the research as it pertains to violent pornography and its links with violence against women and children.

This will help in identifying a new range of actions, including the development of a public awareness campaign around the harms of pornography, and how it fuels misogyny and violence against women, and undermines gender equality and attitudes to women.

This is a complex issue that requires a well-researched and considered response.

We need early intervention by child and family services, including the Youth Diversion Projects, funded by my department.

We need to develop awareness and knowledge within the education system and youth services to action and tackling these distorted attitudes towards relationships and consent that a young person can imbibe in this hidden – hidden to adults perhaps – world of extreme pornography online and the less extreme but nonetheless corrosive disrespectful and misogynistic material that permeates social media. The dangers this can feed within families is something that will frighten any parent.

So this year, I am very glad to see that the school curriculum and corresponding resources at primary level, junior and senior cycle will include age-appropriate content on consent, domestic violence and coercive control.

Coming back to the Protocol, and children as defendants, the first principle underpinning the Children Act is that children should be diverted from the criminal justice system as far as possible, where it is appropriate to do so, having considered the offending behaviour, the rights of the victim and the interest of society.

Diversion is not appropriate in all cases and, for the more serious crimes, prosecution and perhaps detention are the appropriate interventions, including the appropriate interventions for that child and in that child’s long-term wellbeing and rehabilitation.

As I noted earlier, the staff in Oberstown have the skills and expertise to support the young offender to take a different path and overcome the behaviours and circumstances that led him or her to crime, while still in the formative years.

My department’s contribution to the Protocol, and to addressing the position of those children whose offence is not suitable for diversion, or who are unable for cultural, or family, or maturity reasons to avail of the opportunities that the statutory Garda Diversion Programme offers, is in the implementation of the Youth Justice Strategy.

In particular, as regards the Protocol, the department is putting in place a Court accompaniment services for young offenders (alongside the court accompaniment services funded already for children as witnesses, or as victims of sexual crime).

The service is being provided by the dedicated and skilled staff of the Youth Diversion Projects we fund. We have a network of these throughout the State.

It is not an advocacy role, but to explain in layperson’s terms what is happening at the various stages of the proceedings and to be there as a support for the defendant.

The initiative builds on relationships already developed between courts and individual YDPs in their areas, and in particular from consultations with the Ombudsman for Children and the President of the District Court in July 2024.

Even in the most serious cases that come before the CCJ, this type of informal support by a professional Youth Justice Worker may be the catalyst for longer-term rehabilitation of the young offender.

In the Children Court – and this is not our focus today of course - the court accompaniment service may – and this is the ambition – provide the court with an alternative to proceeding to the hearing and a conviction.

Instead, the alternative would be to defer and to invite the young defendant to work with the Youth Diversion Project on the understanding that successful engagement with the YDP and a genuine commitment to a change of behaviour would be of real benefit to the defendant, and allow a different conversation and conclusion when the case is relisted.

Those solicitors – and the Law Society is here today - who find themselves asking the court to request the Director of the Garda Diversion Programme to re-open his decision, may find this option to be one that the client could be well-advised to consider and request.

In those cases, obviously, where it is suitable.

We know that some children can’t or won’t avail of the statutory diversion options due to family or community pressures or immaturity.

The Youth Justice Workers are skilled at relating to young people within the criminal justice system.

Working with their young charges to develop maturity and empathy and insight into the harm the offending behaviour has caused to the young person themselves, their family and the wider community is a key part of what the YDPs do and how they and Garda JLOs promote community safety and reducing future offending.

Restorative Justice is embedded in the work of JLOs and Youth Diversion Project staff.

We know that, where children are the offenders, very often what the victim wants is to be heard, to hear remorse and to be assured that it won’t happen again.

I know that judges in the other courts are wondering when the benefits of this Protocol will be available to them, and Judge Biggs has made the point that this is just a start.

Evidence of success should and will lead to a desire amongst the judiciary and all other stakeholders in the criminal justice system to deliver the same benefits of speedy investigation, decision-making and trial processing in relation to other offences and in other courts.

There will, I am sure, be questions in relation to resources and systems to be aired in those discussions.

Without pre-empting those future discussions , I want you to know that I understand that there are very real issues to be addressed here in the future and I am happy to commit my department to remain with you in future work.

Thank you.