Mr. John Finucane:

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan, who has raised a number of good points. What she finished on was the lack of political will within the jurisdiction to deal with the issue. As a member of the public who lives in Belfast I want the people who are in prison, no matter what they are in for, to be released from prison. I do not want them to be any more dangerous than they were when they walked into prison in the first place. In the general prison population we have a lot of people who are unable to meet their release criteria because they cannot complete courses they must complete by the time their sentence is up. They simply cannot do that. It is impossible for them to do so, either because the courses are not available or only a certain number of people are allowed to do the course. Sometimes one will find that those people are released anyway or that they come out with addiction issues more severe than when they entered prison. Whether society likes a specific inmate or prisons in general, rehabilitation is very important and is being deliberately under-resourced.

The revocation of licences was mentioned as was lengthy remands. In respect of bail, Mr. Bunting is 100% correct, I have heard a Crown barrister stand up in the High Court and say the person has asked to be placed in Roe House and the judge can take the inference from that. In England there are bail time limits and if one’s case is not ready to be heard by a court within a certain amount of time, one is automatically entitled to bail. We have a criminal justice system in the North which is very lengthy and costly in terms of the length of time police investigations take and then the length of time it takes the Public Prosecution Service, PPS, to direct and have a case ready before the court means that sometimes people spend up to three years on remand. There seems to be a slight shift and I think the courts are under pressure due to the number of people on remand for lengthy periods of time was probably causing embarrassment as much as anything. That was noted in a recent article by the Belfast Telegraph. It was a piece any PR guru would be quite proud of. In a piece with an MI5 operative they were quite pointed in their criticism of the courts for releasing people on bail. I find that quite worrying because I feel it is an attempt to interfere with what should be the impartiality of the judiciary, which should be left to make up its own mind without any interference. The article and the subsequent editorials from the Belfast Telegraphwere quite clear in terms of asking why we should be releasing such very dangerous people, who have not been convicted of anything. The view was that they should just be locked up and we should ignore them.

With regard to the revocation of licences, again, I am dealing with someone whom it might be slightly crude to describe as an ordinary decent criminal. People who are out on licence for offences where they would have been held in the general population, I am aware that if they are subsequently rearrested while on licence for offences that could be described as petty, but it is a criminal allegation nonetheless, those people do not have their licences revoked until the outcome of their case and there is a decision on whether they are guilty or innocent of what might be slightly low level criminality. With regard to people who are held in Roe House, they are at a completely different end of the spectrum. They will not know their accuser and will probably not know what they are accused of, but one must take the word of their accused that it is so severe that the authorities just have to revoke the licence and society should take their word for it. That is a complete subversion of due process. It is an area on which more light should be shone. It is an abuse of power.

Deputy O'Sullivan asked about the new Secretary of State. I have not had any personal dealings with him but I see he comes from a security background and he seems to be using national security certainly with regard to legacy issues that our society struggles to deal with, as a blanket to hide behind instead of dealing with things. I worry that national security or even security in general is an easy blanket reason to prevent people from dealing with issues that should be addressed.