'Fagin's Law' will not work if it relies on groomed children to testify, experts warn
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The new law criminalising the recruitment of children by criminal gangs will not work if it is dependent on the testimony of groomed children, experts have said.
Workers in the fields of youth work and trafficking have raised concerns about the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023, also known as Fagin’s Law, goes through the Oireachtas.
The legislation proposes a five-year prison sentence for those who groom children into crime.
However, convictions under the new law rely on the child giving evidence against their groomer.
JP O’Sullivan, networks and communications manager of MECPATHS, which works with the hospitality industry to prevent child trafficking, said: “That is where it will become unstuck.”
"I don’t see how it is going to work.”
He also says the five-year sentence is “quite short”, adding: “Under the human trafficking legislation, the sentence for human trafficking in this country is life. Yet we are offering a five-year sentence to somebody who grooms a child for criminal exploitation.”
Last week, a meeting of Dublin City Council’s Joint Policing Committee was told that an eight-year-old child is being used to collect a drug debt from a family that has paid out a total of €30,000 so far.
In Kerry in recent years, a man was jailed for drug dealing after he, his partner, and young children were searched by gardaí. Heroin was found in one of the children’s schoolbags.
Berni Smyth is the chief executive of the Kerry Diocesan Youth Service and is a former chairwoman of the Irish Refugee Council. She also previously worked with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.
“There should be no focus on the child being responsible for getting a prosecution. The child is a victim,” said Ms Smyth.
“We need to look at how this is going to play out in practice and make sure that the child is not further victimised by a law that is being brought in to protect them.
“If the systems can gather the information without relying so heavily on children to give information, we would be in a much better position.”
“If a young person has been groomed and has gotten attention that maybe they were lacking previously, the State has to understand that a child that has been groomed isn’t in a position to end that relationship and it takes them a long time — sometimes never – to accept that offer of friendship or care or support was not genuine.”
“Young people are getting into drug using and drug selling at a younger age and drug debt is an issue which is across the country.”
According to Ms Smyth, children younger than 12 are being used across the country to ferry drugs for gangs, and this is not confined to cities and big towns.
Ms Smyth says children in care are particularly vulnerable to grooming, with the housing crisis and poverty having an impact.
"Children in state care at the moment are very vulnerable. The housing crisis is having a knock on effect.” “Predators and opportunists are there all the time and they are watching. The housing crisis and poverty at the moment are two very big stresses.”
“I have worked nationally and in various different regions. It is the same pattern everywhere.”