Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I accept the point regarding amendment No. 3 being unnecessary, and there is no problem withdrawing it. It is probably the case that amendment No. 6 rather than amendment No. 5 should be accepted. I will not worry about that. However, amendments Nos. 72 and 73 are linked and their purpose is to precisely to overcome the issue of the board being involved in the day to day management of the prison. What I am trying to do on the one hand is give the board more power over sentence management, with a caveat that the prison governor maintains a power to offset that by being able to revoke or suspend the order the parole board would make. I believe that overcomes the Minister's point about the parole board going beyond its remit and straying into prison management. That is there to balance that situation and giving the board more power over sentence management in this way, through the issuing of orders, was, as far as I can recall, based on a submission from the current parole board. I believe it is reasonable because on the one hand it is giving it more power but, on the other, it is qualifying that so that the management of the prison would be able to carry on.

In response to Deputy O'Callaghan's point about whether that is giving a prison governor too much power to overturn that, the fact that the Governor would have to give a written explanation on that gives it an oversight role. I do not know if that better explains it. I like those two amendments and I am prepared to push them rather than the other ones. If I did not move amendment No. 5 and amendment No. 6 was moved, the possibility of the board issuing orders remains in other Parts of the Act, which I believe is what Deputy O'Callaghan said. That would be fine. Does he understand the point I am making?