Call to give parents ‘soft’ Garda information to protect children

Parents concerned about men loitering near playgrounds and schools “for no obvious reason” could be given “soft” Garda information, including unproven allegations about the individual’s background, if the Child Sex Offenders (Information and Monitoring) Bill is accepted by the Government.

Reform Alliance TD Denis Naughten is due to meet Justice Minister Alan Shatter later today, and he hopes that if the minister broadly accepts his proposals “parents could request information from gardaí about, for example, individuals regularly hanging around playgrounds or schools for no obvious reason”.

The Roscommon-South Leitrim TD believes his bill is very similar to what the Government is proposing to introduce next year and has urged the justice minister to work with him as the longer the law is delayed “children’s lives and safety are being put at risk and following Sarah’s Law in the UK and Megan’s Law in America, the last thing we want is a similar law named after an Irish child”.

Under Mr Naughten’s bill, parents or guardians of children or vulnerable adults could seek from gardaí information about individuals who have unsupervised access because he believes Garda intelligence already on file has “a meaningful role to play in the protection of our children”.

“If someone has unsupervised access to your child, you have a legitimate right to ask is there any information I need to know? Gardaí could check the person’s convictions and also check soft information,” he said.

When asked to define soft information Mr Naughten replied “it should include for example, people who have had rape allegations dropped against them because the victim withdrew their statement out of fear”.

Mr Naughten said gardaí, at their discretion, could inform parents whether a particular individual in their area was “low-, medium- or high-risk”.

The bill, especially the soft information proposal, is likely to raise serious concerns with civil liberties groups but the former Fine Gael TD said any information provided would not be “hearsay”.

“There are a number of cases for technical reasons where people were cleared of sex allegations. This information would not be hearsay. And it works in both ways. It would either warn a parent about a certain individual or else it would clear a person of any false accusations.”

He believes the bill “involves the careful balancing of rights — those of parents to protect and safeguard their children, and those of the offender”.

In July, Mr Shatter informed the Dáil that, in exceptional circumstances, the provision of appropriate information to the public is already possible. However, he said this was done “on an administrative basis but … I intend to put these arrangements on a statutory footing”.