Bairbre Kelly

So once they disclose to the Gardaí, usually at the early stages, that they are linked in with a counsellor,

that is usually when the ball starts to roll.

So even at that point, if they say, and I do not want my counselling notes to be accessed, unfortunately, there is a process that can happen whereby, you know, if it is deemed that there is potential, and now this is again where therapists against harm have major issues, that sometimes it can be deemed that there may be some evidence held within those counselling notes or even the potential of evidence being held

And that's where then that even if the client doesn't give their consent, it may there may be an end result where they those notes could still be subpoenaed.

Right.

And if I could just add to that and just say that I would also agree that the current discussions and amendments that are happening is absolutely, at least now we're talking about this, we're exposing that this is a major issue.

However, we really feel very strongly that the current amendments that are being worked on at the moment regarding Jim O'Callaghan's amendments are

we still feel that they fall way too short because as we saw in 2017 when Section 19A was brought in, since 2017 the law was not adhered to, it was still being abused and misused and we are afraid that even bringing amendments in now

that Jim O'Callaghan is suggesting, because they still leave the potential risk of counselling notes being misused by the defence, as long as that risk remains within the practice of our law, we are afraid that survivors will be re-traumatised.

Many survivors will not go to counselling in the first place because they will be deterred to doing it.

And that we as a profession, therapists, are going to be put in this impossible position of choosing the ethic care for our clients and being legally obliged to do something that goes against everything that we believe in.

It really is.

And, you know, we are the profession that are, you know, we're seeing this face to face, day in and day out, where, you know, clients are either, you know, many clients go to therapy and they're not necessarily there in the beginning because of a sexual assault.

Many clients will, you know, disclose that maybe many years sometimes into therapy.

So what happens in that moment is, you know,

they have now spoken about something that has been deeply, deeply traumatising in their life.

And all of a sudden, the purpose of that counselling room changes in many people's eyes.

All of a sudden, every word that that client will speak that is associated with that awful incident is potentially going to come back and be echoed to them

if they choose to seek justice.

And we're saying absolutely not.