Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I heard what Deputy Daly had to say but take the Chairman's point.

I want to revert to the work that the members of the board are doing. I have had the benefit of reading their decisions, and having to make a decision myself on the recommendation they are making to me.

I will make a general point first about how critical the membership is. I think everybody here accepts that it is critical to have the right people on the board because one must make life and death decisions almost. One must assess the most serious offenders or people who have committed the most serious of crimes who are before the parole board in terms of an application for their future management.

I agree with Deputy Wallace that risk assessment is absolutely central. I have given an awful lot of thought to this matter. I constantly ask myself the following when I read these cases. What is the risk? What is the risk assessment? How has it been done by the parole board? How well has it been done by the various reports that the board has access to? If I have any questions about it I refer them back and get further information. I say that just to highlight how absolutely critical decision-making is and the implications it has for society as a whole in terms of safety and of course for the individual in terms of his or her future life and his or her opportunity for rehabilitation. That always has to be balanced with an absolutely accurate assessment, in so far as we can. These things are not a precise science but they are terribly important. The membership of the board must be seen in that light. The criteria that we use are critically important.

I have put much thought into this. We must ensure we get the right mix and the right balances, and that we do not do anything just for the sake of a representation that might appear to be the right thing to do. We must have a process in place that ensures we get the best people on the parole board. That is the goal of everybody in the committee.

In that context, I will not oppose amendment No. 7. It expands the category of persons qualified to be the chairperson of the parole board. It broadens it to include a solicitor or barrister of ten years standing. Deputy O'Callaghan also includes the phrase "a practising academic". There might be further qualification of that because it is a broad phrase and we might need to narrow it down in the context of the job to be done on the parole board. However, I am happy to revert to the Deputy on that. The Bill will establish the parole board on a statutory basis with decision making powers to release prisoners prior to completion of sentence. I have a preference for a legally qualified chairperson, but I can give it further consideration. I also wish to examine the phrase "practising academic" to define it a little further.

With regard to the amendment proposed by Deputy Wallace, it is existing practice to have a retired member of An Garda Síochána on the parole board. On the point the Deputy makes about risk assessment, whether the member is retired is not an influencing factor. The Deputy appears to be talking about cases where there might be what might be seen as a conflict of interest or where there might have been an involvement of the garda in the case. I do not know how often that happens, but I would not have thought it was very often. The key point is the critical ability of the garda, retired or otherwise, to make the risk assessment. Restricting it to current members narrows the depth of expertise available to the board, so I ask the Deputy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 9 proposes to include in the membership of the parole board "a lay community representative, appointed following a transparent and objective recruitment process and selected by an independent body". Amendment No. 12 proposed by Deputy O’Callaghan contains a similar proposal involving the appointment of such a representative by the Minister. Obviously, "community representative" is a very broad concept and there are varying ideas of who such a representative might be. The basic point, as I have already said, is that persons with the greatest expertise in crime, justice, offender management and, in particular, rehabilitation and re-integration of offenders should be represented. I am not convinced that the amendment is necessary or sufficiently clearly drafted, but I will not oppose it. However, members should again consider the point that the board we are appointing comprises people who must be as tight as possible in terms of the expertise we would like them to bring to the board. It is such a serious decision to make and we want people who understand the context and have the broad qualifications. I have no wish to restrict it unduly, because people bring much life experience to this type of situation as well. However, management of offenders and understanding of criminal behaviour, recidivism and rehabilitation are very important. A particular difficulty with amendment No. 9 relates to the process of recruitment. There is no guidance on who or what would comprise the independent body with responsibility for selection of the person in question. Including the words "transparent" and "objective" appears to be superfluous because this is a requirement of all recruitment processes. I will proceed with amendment No. 12.

Amendments Nos. 10, 13, 16, 17, 19 and 21 proposed by Deputy Clare Daly also relate to the membership of the board and in particular the appointment of persons to the board. The Bill currently provides for the membership of the board to include persons appearing to the Minister to have knowledge and experience of the supervision of discharged prisoners or who have made a study of the causes of delinquency. Currently, when the Minister has to make an appointment to the board, there are clear criteria for who should be appointed. They must be expert. Amendments Nos. 10 and 19 remove the Minister from any role in the appointment of persons to the parole board and assign the role to the Public Appointments Service. The membership of the board as currently proposed in section 8 properly identifies the appropriate persons to be members of the board as well as the means of appointment. It is appropriate, given the Minister for Justice and Equality's oversight of the criminal justice system, that the Minster should have input into the membership of the board. The Minister has responsibility for oversight and has awareness of the broad issues in crime. To exclude the Minister having any input into the board is unnecessary.

It is a positive thing for the Minister to have an input into the membership because one often finds when one looks at the membership of a board that some skills might be absent, so when the Minister is due to make the appointment that could be taken into consideration. One may find, for whatever reason, that particular expertise has been selected by everybody else who has an input into the membership and there might well be a gap which could be filled by the appointment by the Minister of the two members. This relates not just to the parole board, but to appointments in general. Certainly one of the criteria I consider when making board appointments is what skills are necessary in the particular situation and what is missing. That is a unique role and unique knowledge the Minister can have, as opposed to other people.

Amendment No. 13 proposes the appointment of a further two persons through the Public Appointments Service with experience of working with offenders. It is evident that the board as set out under section 8 already contains such persons, be it the representative of the Probation Service or the representative of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, a body with a great deal of experience in this area and which focuses on these issues and is very appropriate. Equally subparagraph (i) of the section refers to the appointment of persons with knowledge and experience of the supervision or aftercare of discharged persons and there is potentially considerable overlap with that provision and the amendment proposed by the Deputy.

Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 propose that persons appointed to the parole board should be selected through competitions run by the Public Appointments Service. This would be extremely unwieldy if it was applied to everybody. The appointment of existing employees of certain services such as the IPS or the Probation Service should be a matter for those organisations and those appointed will continue to be employees of those services. I do not believe that any difficulty has been raised by the existing parole board which these amendments would address. There would have to be further consultation with a number of the organisations and with the Public Appointments Service on the impact of these amendments before they could sensibly be agreed. Members will understand my point. Take the example of a probation officer who is nominated to be a member. It is quite appropriate that this comes from within the Probation Service, as opposed to all probation officers going to the Public Appointments Service and having to go through that process and then returning as members. It is unwieldy.

Amendment No. 21 is to section 8(4), which sets out certain requirements of persons appointed to the parole board. The amendment adds to those requirements by requiring the person to have training or experience in interviewing techniques and proven analytical skills. Again, that is very broad. These skills are clearly necessary. Whether it is necessary to build in them in as a specific requirement in this way, that everybody has skill in interviewing and in analytical techniques, gives rise to the question of assessing that and building it in as a criterion. People will bring a different range of skills to the board and I am not sure it is necessary to go into that level of detail.

Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 relate to the gender balance of the parole board and I agree with them.

Amendment No. 18 corrects an oversight in providing for the appointment of a probation officer to the board by including such appointment in paragraph (3)(e) of section 8. However, I propose to bring forward an amendment to provide for the appointment of a probation officer by the director of the Probation Service.

The key goal is to get the right mix of people with the right level of training, experience and understanding of the area to do this important job. That has guided my approach and response to the amendments.