Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Select Committee on Justice and Equality

Parole Bill 2016: Committee Stage

9:00 am

Photo of Mick WallaceMick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is hard to disagree with what Deputy O'Callaghan said. On amendment No. 8, my point was that the emphasis should be on the assessment of the current risk of the person before the board. There should be an emphasis on current knowledge of the public safety environment, on assessing risk to the community or risk of reoffending at the present time, using up-to-date information from currently serving members of the force. It is important to focus on the prisoner now and at how much he or she has been rehabilitated, and not have a retrospective look at the period of his or her offence or his or her sentencing. A retired garda might have known the prisoner better in the past than a serving garda, but we hope that the prisoner is not the same individual he or she was when he or she got into trouble and that maybe he or she has moved on. While we accept that the principle of prison does not work, the thinking is that it is supposed to rehabilitate prisoners. If the system was better than it is, there might be more rehabilitation than there is. To give a person a fair chance, it is fair to look at his or her present more than his or her past.

Deputy O'Callaghan made a point about retired gardaí. I know retired gardaí as well and they are a lot smarter than serving gardaí in many cases. It does not change the fact that current members of the Garda will be more up to date, which is natural.

My amendment No. 9 refers to a lay community representative. Given that this stuff is going to be put on a statute basis then it is just a case of ring-fencing this matter. There might be several community representatives on the board or they might be sidelined. We could have a situation where there are no community representatives on the board. My amendment seeks to guard against such a situation by insisting that the board has at least one community representative at all times, on a statutory basis.

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