Kevin Doyle

The Greens said the same.

A Labour spokesperson said that they're not aware of who the TD is, but that that person should come forward and identify themselves in the interest of transparency.

And ANQ confirmed that the TD was not a member of their party.

Yes, well, the first person really out of the blocks on this was the Taoiseach on Sunday.

And he said he didn't know who it was, but that he didn't believe that public representatives should be given these references.

He was sort of quickly followed up by Simon Harris, who said similar.

He said he didn't know who it was, but the person who wrote the reference should come forward.

He referred to a legislation that had been brought in in 2024 in relation to sexual offences and these character references that asked the people who were given these references to

that they must be vouched for and they should be willing to be cross-examined in court.

There has been certainly a political call for this person to reveal themselves, to stand over their reference and to come forward.

But it really has fallen on deaf ears.

First off, I think it's important to say that this issue of character references, particularly for victims, and I've spoken to a lot of them over the years and recently, victims and survivors, it's a major issue for them.

They find it very re-traumatizing.

They don't see what purpose they serve after someone has been convicted for, say, an ex-employer, a priest to come in and sort of tell the court about what a great person is.

The perpetrator was after, for example, in this case, these heinous crimes have been committed against a child.

Rachel Mora came out on Sunday from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

I think the way she put it sort of sums up the thoughts on this from victims and survivors.

And she said that she found it contemptible that at that point we thought it was an elected representative would provide a character reference.

And she talked about the reintroduction.

traumatizing effect this has on people and she didn't think that anybody should give character references when a sentence has been handed down but in essence the way these work at the moment is once someone is convicted and a person is asked to give a character reference for that person they are aware of the offenses that the person has been convicted of so they know