Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The caveats and exclusions provided for in the legislation as drafted were supposedly designed to ensure we have a just and proportionate system. However, I do not think it was drafted in a sufficiently careful manner. I agree with the first point made by Deputy Pringle, which is that there is no reference to previous convictions being "relevant to the crime being tried". To be honest, I do not think the proposed exclusion should apply at all because it is contrary to the whole spirit of the Bill. The unspoken implications of the proposed exclusion are that the criminal history of a person with a spent conviction is still there - it has not disappeared and will chase the person in question - and that it is more likely than not that the person in question will reoffend. If this approach were not based on such implications, why would this evidence be needed? As far as I am concerned, if there is sufficient evidence to charge someone with burglary, for example, it should be irrelevant that he or she committed a burglary previously. I refer to circumstances in which there has been a huge gap between the commission of the two crimes. If the gardaí and the prosecuting counsel have evidence to link someone to the crime for which he or she is on trial, what that person did in the past should have nothing to do with that trial. If we do not approach this issue in such a manner, we will be telling people that their convictions will never be spent because they will always be dogged by them in certain circumstances. I do not think this Bill provides for sufficient scrutiny of those circumstances, which should be overseen transparently. To be honest, if the prosecution is doing its job properly, the past history of the person being prosecuted will be an utter irrelevance.

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