Irish Examiner view: No space for complacency in safeguarding victims

The State must ensure that complainants in sexual offence trials are protected, and should enact recommendations to replace legislation aimed at doing so

In 2025, some 39% of sexual offence trials involved an application to introduce sexual experience evidence.

A law intended to protect victims cannot be judged by the reassurance of its name. It must be judged by what happens when someone enters a courtroom and asks the State for justice.

Ireland’s so-called “rape shield” has been on the statute book since 1981. Its purpose was to restrict the use of a complainant’s other sexual experiences in a rape trial. Forty-five years later, research finds that it is failing to provide the protection intended.

That distance demands a response. Good intentions cannot excuse a law whose operation allows the prejudices it was designed to exclude to persist.

Sinéad Ring recommends repealing and replacing Section 3 of the Criminal Law (Rape) Act 1981. Drawing on 21 in-depth interviews with lawyers and others familiar with the process, her report identifies continued reliance on discredited assumptions: Previous consent predicts subsequent consent, while sexual experience undermines credibility.

Neither proposition should acquire legitimacy simply because it is advanced in court.

In 2025, some 39% of sexual offence trials involved an application to introduce sexual experience evidence. This measures applications, not permissions granted: No data are available on how many succeeded. That gap must also be
addressed.

Effective protection requires the State to know how its safeguards operate.

Particularly disturbing is the scrutiny directed at children and adolescents. Pornography, sexting, and nude images can be deployed to challenge an expectation of sexual innocence. Young people should not have to demonstrate ignorance of sexuality before their allegations receive a fair hearing.

The ongoing controversy over allegations of serious sexual assault at Cornell University, and its handling of those allegations, has renewed attention on institutional responsibility.

Ireland, with its own history of institutional neglect and failures towards abuse survivors, has no grounds for complacency. The accused’s right to a fair trial is fundamental. So too is the complainant’s right to dignity, privacy, and protection from irrelevant humiliation. A justice system worthy of public confidence must uphold both.

Testing an allegation rigorously does not require treating a person’s sexual history as a character defect. Consent is specific to the act and the circumstances. It is not permanently conferred by a relationship, a photograph, or an earlier encounter.

Government should act on Ring’s recommendation for replacement legislation, with clear limits on admissibility,
effective representation for complainants, and transparent monitoring of decisions.

The message to anyone who commits sexual violence must be unequivocal: A victim’s private life offers no excuse for abuse, and smearing them must provide no route around accountability. Survivors deserve a law that delivers on its promise, and a State prepared to ensure that it does.

FAI offering speeches instead of answers

An Oireachtas committee hearing is an opportunity for the public to obtain answers from people whose decisions affect their lives. Its value depends on how effectively that opportunity is used.

The FAI’s appearance this week warranted searching scrutiny. Football governance encompasses safeguarding, public money, and the welfare of players, alongside the association’s handling of the deeply contentious fixtures against Israel.

These are substantial responsibilities, deserving substantial answers. Committee members have a responsibility of their own: To make the available time count.

A lengthy statement, however sincere or passionately delivered, consumes minutes in which a witness could be explaining a decision. Repeating a question already answered wastes another opportunity. Revisiting an evasive answer is necessary; asking again because a member missed the earlier exchange is something else.

The public interest is served by preparation, co-ordination, and persistence. Members should agree areas of questioning, listen to the answers and build on what colleagues have established. Short questions leave less room for ambiguity. Precise follow-ups make evasion harder. Emotion is understandable when the issues involve vulnerable people or matters of
conscience. But expressing indignation cannot substitute for establishing who knew what, who made a decision, and what action followed.

Chairpersons should enforce concise contributions and protect time for answers. Where existing procedures encourage speeches at the expense of interrogation, those procedures should change. Members can improve their tactics immediately, without waiting for new rules. Poorly organised questioning makes life easier for the organisation under scrutiny. It allows difficult issues to disappear into repetition, interruption, and competing declarations.

The measure of a successful hearing is what the public learns and what accountability follows. Committee members must ensure these important occasions deliver both.

Otherwise, an instrument of democratic scrutiny risks
becoming a self-serving talking shop, leaving the public with speeches where answers should have been.

Esther Rantzen's generous fame

For generations of Irish and British viewers, Esther Rantzen was a familiar presence in the sitting room: Warm, funny, persistent, and prepared to ask awkward questions.

Through the BBC’s That’s Life!, she made television that entertained while taking people’s troubles seriously. Her death, aged 86, marks the passing of a broadcaster who understood the responsibility that came with being a household name. She used her celebrity to bring neglected suffering into view and, crucially, to do something about it.

Childline, which she founded in 1986, remains her most profound legacy. It gave frightened children a place to speak, often for the first time, and someone willing to listen.

Her later work through The Silver Line extended that compassion to older people experiencing loneliness.

Rantzen leaves enduring services built around a simple human need: To be heard. Few public figures have put their fame to such generous use. Hers was a life that made countless others less lonely.