Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 are designed to reduce the rehabilitation period for fines from two years to one year for a fine of €5,000 or less, or, for a fine of more than €5,000, from three years to two years. This is a matter of judgment, similar to many other parts of the Bill, and it may need to be reviewed in years to come. At this point we will not be accepting the amendment. The two-year minimum rehabilitation period that applies in the Bill should be seen in the context of the Law Reform Commission proposal that the minimum should be five years and of the period in the Bill as originally published, which was a three-year minimum. The Minister substantially changed the rehabilitation period when the Bill was in the Seanad and he is satisfied that the regime works as a whole. Accordingly, the Government is not in a position to accept the amendments. However, I put it to the Deputy that this is something that may need to be looked at again in some years' time, possibly following further work carried out on analysing the results with regard to how this is used and, further, following progress made by the Department of Justice and Equality in working with other jurisdictions on correlating spent convictions.