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File photo Lewis Whyld/PA Wire.

Changes to prostitution law in Scotland 'could see brothel keepers focus on Ireland'

The Scottish parliament is debating a plan to fast-track new laws which would make it illegal to pay for sex – but that could lead to them moving their activities here, the Immigrant Council of Ireland has warned.

HUMAN TRAFFICKERS AND brothel keepers could be tempted to move their activities to Ireland if a planned change in the laws around prostitution in Scotland goes ahead, the Immigrant Council of Ireland has warned.

The Scottish parliament is this week debating a plan to fast-track new laws which would make it illegal to pay for sex. The Immigrant Council of Ireland says that Ireland should follow the Scottish lead on closing a legal loophole which also exists in Irish law.

“With Scotland now joining the list of countries which are debating or introducing new laws there is a real danger that Ireland could become a safe haven for traffickers, pimps and others who have no regard for human rights,” said Denise Charlton, the chief executive of the Immigrant Council of Ireland.

She said that the Scottish bill is in line with actions being taken in other European countries to crack down on prosecution.

“If successful, it will give the authorities an important legal weapon to close down a sex trade where threats, violence and abuse take place on a regular based,” said Charlton.

The SNP-led government in Scotland says it will give ‘careful consideration’ to the new proposals which aim to clamp down on the sex trade and disrupt trafficking, the Scotsman reports.

Leitrim first council to call for ban on buying sex >

Irish fans urged not to use prostitutes during Euro 2012 >

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37 Comments
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    Mute Audrius Neviera
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    Jun 19th 2012, 7:43 AM

    Why not just legalise it? Are they really that naive,that by passing that law there will be no traffickers and no prostitution. And how would you prove that one paid for sex?…unless there will be undercover female police officers,but that just sound ridiculous.

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    Mute prot0type
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    Jun 19th 2012, 7:53 AM

    Aren’t you missing the point? I’m sure that in an ideal world where everything is simple, that if somebody chose to sell they’re body, they’d have that right but the point in these laws are to deter trafficking of immigrants who are forced into prostitution.

    The reason the governments can make laws against the sex trade is that it’s one you don’t exactly pay tax on is it? No money goes back to the government but it instead goes back to trafficking more immigrants for the sex trade.

    Of course there are no doubt people out there that want to do this as they’re means of a living but it doesn’t benefit the government or the economy so there’s no reason to keep it. Ireland should ban it too.

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    Mute Stephen Ramsey
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    Jun 19th 2012, 9:55 AM

    @Prot0type:
    The reasoning behind legalising the sex trade is that it is far more effective at stopping human trafficing than banning it.

    This is evidenced by Amsterdam where trafficing is relatively low because it’s unneccesary.

    Legalisation would lead to regulation and taxation. This would mean women are safer, the government makes money, the job becomes far more voluntary, the health risks associated with the job plummet and even the streets become safer with a decrease in sexual assaults.

    This is all observable through Amsterdams records on the subject.

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    Mute I love lamp
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:15 AM

    And look at the state of the place over there. Would you really want that in any Irish city?

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:52 AM

    Prototype I think that you are missing the point. Traffickers aren’t too worried about the laws now so what makes you think they will just pack up and go if these new laws are brought in? Stephen has a valid point in relation to legalizing it and I’ve seen this in other countries. I was in Prague and was told by the girl in the hotel that legal brothels were subject to all sorts of checks and legislation whereas those girls working off the streets and their pimps were constantly cracked down on. Believe me if you saw the drug addled girls with track marks in their arms that approached us on the street you might change your mind on legalizing the trade.

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    Mute I love lamp
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:59 AM

    Must be a few weirdos that do :(

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    Mute Eileen Lang
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    Jun 21st 2012, 6:32 AM

    The whole statement by the Denise Charlton is seriously flawed, because, not only is the Scottish Parliament robustly resisting further criminalisation…along with the Police Commissioner who has the sense to realise how much harm criminalisation will cause, often in direct ratio to the vulnerability and innocent of those affected, but also, as Alan Shatter (a lawyer by trade, rather than a nun) already pointed out last october, there is a great deal more to rewriting Irish legislation in order to criminalise the purchase of sex than “closing a loophole” and suggesting otherwise is simply dishonest and manipulative.

    Denise Charlton is also conveniently ignoring the her own insistence that women are forced to sell sex by economic imperative and have no choice…because, wherever that is truly the case, one thing you can be very sure of is that legislation to take somebody’s last resort away will not give them more choices, it takes away the only thing they have left and deliberatly taking the only chance away from someone who is desperate amounts to far greater and more destructive abuse than anything I ever saw in the sex industry…

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    Mute Eileen Lang
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    Jun 21st 2012, 6:36 AM

    prot0type – they just raided 100 premises here and could not find one single victim of trafficking.

    It is morally reprehensible to suggest that the livelihood of hundreds of women and often their families, must be sacrificed as a half baked failure to tackle a problem that does not exist in the first place.

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    Mute Ed Redbird
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    Jun 19th 2012, 8:14 AM

    With that rhetoric we should close all pubs as well…… There is pubs that stop serving you when you get drunk and others that don’t…. How about fast cars…… Maybe they should all be capped.
    I can see the merit of red light districts in Belgium Holland Germany…. Where the workers do not have to be afraid of the law and are legally protected.

    It is the law and the misplaced christian opinions that makes sure these people have no protection and no where to go.

    Legalise and protect the people that choose to work and are forced to work and nail the people force this last group

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    Mute Alex McDwyer
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    Jun 19th 2012, 8:15 AM

    What evidence do they have for this? Sounds like annother quango coming out with rubbish in order to attempt to justify its existence.

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    Mute Audrius Neviera
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    Jun 19th 2012, 8:18 AM

    And how exactly this law gonna work?…maybe I’m missing a point, but the way I see it it’s always gonna be people who will use prostitutes and no law will stop them. Why not follow Holland or Belgium example and legalise it?…what’s wrong with that?

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    Mute Tertullian
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    Jun 19th 2012, 10:19 AM

    I keep hearing about trafficking but there seems little evidence for it. After the recent joint operation across Ireland by the PSNI and the Gardai it was reported that despite claims about organised prostitution rings, all the young prostitutes who were subject to raids and searches in more than 100 locations in the Republic were working independently. Only eight people, seven young women and a man in his forties, were arrested. They were released without charge (Sunday Independent report, 10/6/12).

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    Mute Ciara Ní Mhurchú
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    Jun 19th 2012, 8:38 AM

    Just zip up yer mickey lads.

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    Mute Paul Carr
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:50 AM

    I hate (male) pimps and traffickers as much as the next fella but, as another poster put it, we need to go at this problem with a scalpel and not a sledgehammer.

    Let’s go the New Zealand route. According to the 2003 New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act, small owner operated brothels with up to 4 people can operate without the need for licensing from the local authorities or police. These brothels are composed of sex workers who keep all their earnings; none is handed over to pimps.

    For managed brothels of over 4 people, licensing will be required. A criminal background check of the applicant for a license will be required. If anything turns up; assault, murder, drug abuse, drug trafficking, possession of illegal weapons, the application will probably be refused by the local authority/police.

    This is a carrot and stick approach. We empower the sex workers ( probably over 90% of them are women) whilst simultaneously delivering a kick in the nuts to the (male) pimps and trafficking who would do harm to the sex workers.

    More blanket criminalization will just drive the entire industry further underground providing more job insecurity to all sex workers.

    Also, in legislation, let’s provide immunity from expulsion from the country to migrant sex workers, including undocumented migrant sex workers. Probably most sex workers in the Republic of Ireland are migrants. This will encourage them to come forward to the police to report on thugs; be they ugly mug clients or pimps or traffickers.

    Let’s induce the populace to work with the police to clamp down hard on trafficking, pimping and violence in targeted raids and arrests rather than seize upon a quick fix so-called solution such as criminalizing the purchase of sex (which effectively means removing livelihood from all sex workers).

    The all Ireland police raids last month on all known brothels on the island was a clumsy sledgehammer approach which is potentially damaging to relations between the sex workers and police and a shocking waste of police resources. We are in the middle of a recession, folks. Police are being cut back in the south. It’s time to look for intelligent cost effective solutions which involve, first and foremost, listening to what the sex workers want in order to make their environment safer to work in.

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    Mute Ciara Ní Mhurchú
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    Jun 19th 2012, 12:44 PM

    If men were buying your sister would you be ok with that?

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    Mute Ed Redbird
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    Jun 19th 2012, 3:21 PM

    Would your sister be ok with that? It’s her choice not yours?
    Sure I don’t think that anyone fancies his or her daughter in that profession.. But is it not their choice? Being a prostitute is a more honoust profession than a well studied lawyer defending rapist molesters an peados

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    Mute David Lohan
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    Jun 19th 2012, 10:05 PM

    New Zealand is a country being increasingly held up as a model of how prostitution should work – now that the wheels have begun to come off the Dutch route of legalisation. The truth about New Zealand is different to the rhetoric. It has no human trafficking problem ….. Because its law doesn’t conform to international standards and it turns a blind eye to them.

    Indeed with 13 kids working in prostitution ( technically an act of human trafficking under international law ) I’d say we have a problem … but there are 200 kids working in prostitution in New Zealand.

    I give more extensive details on the situation in New Zealand on my website addressing human trafficking here http://www.palermoprotocol.com/general/new-zealand

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    Mute Paul Carr
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    Jun 20th 2012, 7:16 AM

    David: You claim on your website that New Zealand’s anti trafficking legislation is not in line with the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons. This isn’t true. The Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons, in its definition of human trafficking, does not comment on whether there is a requirement for borders to be crossed or not in order for trafficking to take place. Therefore, New Zealand’s anti trafficking legislation, which you say only deals with international trafficking but not internal trafficking, is in line with the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons.

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    Mute Wendy Lyon
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    Jun 20th 2012, 11:54 AM

    David, I fail to see how decriminalisation in New Zealand can be blamed for underage prostitution, since it doesn’t apply to people under 18.

    And while you’re talking about definitions you might have mentioned that the Dutch definition of trafficking is extraordinarily broad, applying to both exploitation without movement and movement without exploitation – even though Palermo requires the presence of both.

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    Mute David Lohan
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    Jun 20th 2012, 5:53 PM

    Ok, I see where you’ve misundersood. You are correct that the Palermo Protocol does not require borders to be crossed BUT the NZ law requires that they do cross them. This is why the NZ law does not conform to international standards.

    So in this way NZ have brushed aside the biggest issues facing their society. The New Zealand model, as some call it, is really just about ignoring the sexual abuse of citizens.

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    Mute David Lohan
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    Jun 20th 2012, 6:02 PM

    Hi Wendy,

    Actually the law in NZ is different in this regard too. A person can legitmately work in prostitution in NZ and be less than 18. I find it very difficult to appreciate how people in NZ can tolerate this.

    There is an article here that explains – http://www.examiner.com/article/new-zealand-high-child-prostitution-rate-and-legislation-allowing-a-12-years-old-s-consensual-sex

    Apparently a child is defined in New Zealand as someone under the age of 16 years of age. The result according to this article is …. “Therefore, though children in the age between 16 and 18 are not allowed to work at massage parlors, no legislation prohibits them from engaging in commercial sex as prostitutes.”

    Given the treatment of children in New Zealand, the prevalence of sexual exploitation of children there, especially in the form of the number of child prostitutes engaged there (ECPAT NZ state that figure to be 200) and the criticism in the Trafficking in Persons Report 2012 of the situation there I think NZ is the last country we want to seek to emulate.

    A news article given details of contempory issues facing the country http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814256

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    Mute David Lohan
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    Jun 20th 2012, 6:05 PM

    The Palermo Protocol doesn’t require movement. The word is a logical OR. A logical AND (in mathematic speak) would require movement. Either are sufficient for the Palermo Protocol.

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    Mute Wendy Lyon
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    Jun 20th 2012, 11:28 PM

    David, maybe you should actually read the New Zealand legislation instead of relying on sensationalistic media. The law clearly states that is illegal to buy sex from a person under the age of 18. And that it is illegal to help a person under the age of 18 to sell sex. And that it is illegal to make money from the prostitution of a person under the age of 18. In fact, the only thing the law doesn’t do is criminalise people under the age of 18 who are selling sex themselves. You have a problem with this? Really?

    And Palermo does require movement, “movement” being the widely agreed shorthand for the first element of the trafficking definition (recruitment, transportation etc). Both that element and the exploitation element, as well as the coercion element, must be present for trafficking to take place. Exploitation simpliciter is not trafficking under Palermo. But it is under Dutch law.

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    Mute Paul Carr
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    Jun 21st 2012, 3:23 AM

    David: The Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons is an International Agreement. Usually, international agreements provide a lot of guidelines but are short on detail. It is left to national governments to apply the law and they provide the detail in their national anti-trafficking legislation.

    As I’ve written, the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons makes no explicit mention, in their definition of trafficking, to the requirement to cross borders or not, either, or, or both, and therefore, New Zealand’s legislation , which you say only covers cross border trafficking, is in line with the guidelines laid down by the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons.

    The Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons requires ratifying states to enact anti-trafficking legislation.

    I find it hilarious that you criticize the New Zealand anti trafficking law for not being in accordance with the Palermo Protocol in Trafficking in Persons when, in fact, New Zealand has ratified the protocol without reservations but the USA, where the sale and purchase of sex is banned in all 50 states, has entered reservations including not being bound by Article 15 paragraph 2 that governs arbitration between states (on the interpretation and application of the protocol) and the final possible involvement of the International Court of Justice, putting the USA in the same boat as such icons of human rights enforcement as Vietnam, Uzbekistan and China.

    http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=XVIII-12-a&chapter=18&lang=en

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    Mute Paddy O Donnell
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    Jun 19th 2012, 9:06 AM

    legalising something doesn’t automatically make it right.

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    Mute Stephen Ramsey
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    Jun 19th 2012, 10:02 AM

    Illegalising it doesn’t make the problem disapear.

    If the problem is people selling their bodies, well you’ll never stop that. Where there is demand in a market, somebody will start selling.

    If the problem you’re talking about is slavery and trafficing of women, regulation would curb that. But you can’t have regulation without legalisation.

    This problem, whatever it is, needs a scalpel not a hammer.

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    Mute Ed Redbird
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:15 AM

    Right from what prospective….. Who are you to judge…. If a man or woman chooses that job….. That’s their choice their body.
    Sure they are going to make paying for sex illegal. Well then you pay for someone’s attendance company….. Anything else that happens is two (or more) consenting adults.

    Give people some protection. No means no….. And crossing that line people need to be able to go to authorities and feel protected.
    People forced to work need to be able to feel they can go to authorities without being judged and be protected as well.

    Imagine those christian brothers who for a small fee would have had the option of a consenting adult….
    (I am not making excuses for the bastards that IMO should be castrated with hammer for what they did)

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    Mute Paddy O Donnell
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    Jun 19th 2012, 12:17 PM

    the problem is exploiting people to satisfy a selfish sexual gratifaction. peoples bodies are not commodities that should be bought or sold.

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    Mute Mark Dennehy
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:47 AM

    I was expecting to see jokes about how this would be announced as a new jobs initiative by the government – I really wasn’t expecting to see people *actually* welcoming it as good news.

    I guess it goes to show how bad things are…

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    Mute Paul Carr
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    Jun 20th 2012, 7:11 AM

    David: You claim on your website that New Zealand’s anti trafficking legislation is not in line with the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons. This isn’t true. The Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons, in its definition of human trafficking, does not comment on whether there is a requirement for borders to be crossed or not in order for trafficking to take place. Therefore, New Zealand’s anti trafficking legislation, which you say only deals with international trafficking but not internal trafficking, is in line with the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in Persons.

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    Mute Gary Allen
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    Jun 19th 2012, 8:24 AM

    Do it Scotland

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    Mute Paul Carr
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    Jun 19th 2012, 11:26 AM

    I bet they won’t.

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    Mute Ronan Dylon
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    Jun 20th 2012, 10:38 PM

    @David Lohan

    In the UK until recently it was legal for people aged 16 and 17 to pose nude and also be in porn
    The Libdems at one point wanted to lower the age to buy porn to also be lowered to 16.
    Which in my view makes senses as why could it be legal to do something at 16 and not watch it
    That law never happened and other laws where passed were you have to be over 18 to do porn.

    In relation to prostitution a country can easily pass a law saying prostitution is legal but paying for sex from those under 18 is illegal
    Germany does this and Italy also (I am sure others do too)

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    Mute Wendy Lyon
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    Jun 21st 2012, 6:48 AM

    Looks like that change to Scottish laws won’t be going ahead for now, anyway:
    http://glasgowsexworker.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/justice-served-for-now

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    Mute David Lohan
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    Jun 19th 2012, 10:15 PM

    Incidentally a brief article on how Holland has been doing in relation on human trafficking there http://t.co/EXPYYvjL

    And why decriminalisation and legalisation don’t work and haven’t worked http://www.palermoprotocol.com/general/strategies The link includes video from Harvard expert Siddarth Kara who interviewed 140 victims in preparation for his book and who explores human trafficking as a trafficker would … as a business, thus shedding light on why tackling demand is the only rational economic response.

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    Mute Eileen Lang
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    Jun 21st 2012, 6:18 AM

    David you are citing your own opinions as evidence again. That isn’t very valid now, is it?

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    Mute Ronan Dylon
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    Jun 20th 2012, 10:30 PM

    @I Love Lamp
    And look at the state of the place over there (Amsterdam). Would you really want that in any Irish city?

    Amsterdam is not the greatest example I believe Berlin is a much better example
    Prostitution is legal but not in your face

    And yes I would like Irish cities to be like German ones

    Also germany makes 6billion a year from prostitution tax

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