McDowell: Failure to protect children will be criminal offence

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has vowed that failing to take steps to prevent child molestation will be prosecutable as a criminal offence, in line with Ferns Report recommendations.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio today, Mr McDowell said: “There is a suggestion that there should be a new criminal offence relating to engaging in conduct that creates a substantive risk of bodily injury or sexual abuse to a child, or failing to take steps to alleviate that risk, and the report suggests that I should follow that, and I believe that I should.”

Mr McDowell said that anyone in a position to protect children who fails in their duty to do so would be liable to criminal prosecution.

“It means that if you are in a position to stop something happening, and you have the means at your disposal to prevent further damage to children, and you fail wrongly to fail those steps, you don’t make yourself civilly liable to be sued for damages. You commit a criminal offence,” he said.

The minister said this did not amount to “mandatory reporting”, claiming that in certain circumstances this would not be in the interests of the victim.

“It is the right of somebody to seek psychiatric help who has been the victim of abuse without automatically turning the person to whom they seek help from into a state informer,” he said.

Mr McDowell said that without some concessions to the right of victim confidentiality, those victims who felt unable to “go public” would face further suffering and isolation.

Mr McDowell went on to say that a new jurisdiction would be created in the High Court that provides for applications from bodies such as health boards to prohibit potential offenders from having contact with children.

“That is a new civil jurisdiction effectively creating a barring order or protection order requiring someone no longer to have access to children,” he said.

The minister said the new law would not be retrospective, as the constitution would not permit it.