Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the members for their contributions and efforts. I will deal first with what Deputy Clare Daly said. She made the point that she would like to see community representatives on the board. That is a good idea. We need to assess how we could identify community representatives. A criticism, which may be legitimate, is that the membership of the board may look too legalistic. This may be due in part to what I work at. My stance takes into account that it involves a quasi-judicial process for a body to assess whether a person should be released from jail. The authorities must take into account the conflicting factors and the entitlement the prisoner will have under the legislation to apply. On the other hand, they must take into account the potential threat the prisoner may pose to the public. Two sides must be weighed up.

In England at present, this is becoming a quite litigious area. That is the reason, in part, why I believed somebody is needed at the head of the membership who can weigh up these considerations. Perhaps community representatives could do so just as well as people who are used to assessing and to playing a quasi-judicial role. I am happy to consider community representatives. It would be interesting to see how we could get them and whether we should attract them through nomination. I sometimes believe that if one just seeks applications, community representatives are hard to get. When Dublin City Council was trying to get community representatives to sit on the policing committee, people would not apply. One could end up with busybodies who are not necessarily the best. This is a matter I am happy to consider.

I note what the Deputy says about trying to make the gender balance better. The Deputy seeks minimums of six women and six men, rather than four and four, where there are 15 members. That is a good idea.

The Deputy spoke about the interview and its importance. There is an interview but the question of whether parole will be granted is also a legal issue from the prisoner's point of view. They have rights in that regard. Under my system, the constant refusal in an interview to give a prisoner parole would entitle that prisoner to a hearing, which would also involve a quasi-judicial process whereby the body making the decision would have to set out more reasons for refusing or granting parole.

The Deputy spoke about the panels. It is proposed that the panels have three to five members but the Deputy would prefer five. The reason there are 15 members on the board is because there is a lot of work for them to do. They have many applications to consider. It might be worthwhile hearing from the Parole Board in due course if we get to that. One could have five panels of three people assessing. Obviously, it would be preferable to have panels of five but it does come down to resources and workload.

Deputy Daly also suggested that we should consider the impact of parole on the prisoner's family. That is an interesting point. As legislators, we have to be careful when introducing this legislation that we do not present the parole process as simply about being on the side of prisoners and the prisoner's family. Necessarily, victims and victims' families will be coming forward saying that while prison is about rehabilitation, it is not just about rehabilitation as it is also about punishment. People will be saying their son was murdered and is gone forever. It may be asked whether, if a prisoner cannot be rehabilitated, there should be no punishment. That is an interesting debate. Prison is not simply about rehabilitation but also about punishment.

Deputy Daly mentioned how section 19 deals with the fact that one of the factors to be taken into account is the severity of the crime. That is a fair point because one can argue that when the individual is being sentenced in the first instance, the court takes into account the severity of the crime. Therefore, the sentence itself takes into account the severity of the crime. That is an argument and a strong argument. One could ask why severity is being considered again on the grounds that something else is being dealt with. I am happy to examine that.

The Deputy also mentioned the revocation of the parole order, the view that "gravity" is too loose a term and that there should be a revocation only where another crime is committed. I believe there should be a revocation if the terms of the parole order are not complied with or are breached. Parole is just letting one out on licence. One can be brought back if one breaches the terms.

Senator Martin Conway also mentioned gender balance. I agree and in this regard I draw attention to what I said about Senator Clare Daly's point.

Senator Conway also spoke about restorative justice and said it does not work in the community courts. There is a much bigger discussion here because the majority of people in prison do not come near the parole process because they are in for fewer than eight years. I would have believed the majority of people are in for approximately two years. These are small sentences. Those with such sentences are the people who do not pose a huge threat to the community. They comprise the majority. These are the people in respect of whom we should be trying to use our community courts and restorative justice. The Senator's point in this regard is valid. I welcome the fact that he is going to mention it in the Seanad.

Just because Deputy Wallace has not read the legislation does not mean he cannot comment on it. He is perfectly entitled to do so. He will have a chance to read the legislation on Committee Stage.

As I said before, I disagree that prison is all about rehabilitation. Maybe I am a hardened person in that I believe it is also about punishment. It has to be considerably about rehabilitation, however. I agree with the Deputy's point that if people are imprisoned with the intention of rehabilitating them as well as punishing them, leaving them in a cell is not achieving that. If the balance between rehabilitation and punishment is to be 50:50, there needs to be some function to ensure the rehabilitation process is working. At present, it does not exist at all. People do make mistakes and do terrible things. Considerable numbers of people are in prison because of things they do when they are drunk. We need to recognise that moments of madness can destroy many lives. The Deputy is right that we should not be throwing away the key. In this regard, we need to look to the rehabilitation process.

I am glad to hear Deputy Wallace quoting the Jesuits. No soul is ever lost. We could learn much from how community groups like the Jesuits deal with issues like this one.

I welcome Senator Ó Donnghaile's comments. It is a large amount of work. We need legislation. The situation will get more complicated and it needs to be on a statutory basis. I do not know whether this is the right way to do that. It may appear too complicated, but it does not involve a process like a judicial appointments commission where people just sit around and have an easy job of assessing applications from a limited number. This board will handle a great deal of work because of the numbers coming through. It will undoubtedly get that wrong sometimes, so we must ensure that prisoners have their rights and the rights of communities are taken into account so that there is no threat.

The Chairman was correct about how, currently, people apply to the Minister and the Minister defers the matter to the Parole Board before it comes back to him or her to be signed. This new system would cut out the Minister. The statutory function of the Parole Board would be to consider applications for parole. It would then make decisions as to whether to grant parole and send out the parole order at the end of that process. That the Minister's role would be removed is constitutional. Under the Constitution, the State is entitled by law to delegate responsibility for the commutation and remission of sentences to another body.

A good point was made about membership of the board, which was criticised for having many lawyers on it. I was asked why there would be judges. After being sentenced by a beak, a person will be back in front of another beak. The reason is that it is a quasi-judicial function. As a prisoner, I would prefer to take my chances with the Parole Board and someone who is used to weighing up matters than with individuals who have strong views on an issue. This is sometimes evident in other statutory schemes, where individuals with strong views reject all applications. However, I get the point about it possibly being too formally legalistic and that we need more community representation, but we cannot get away from the fact that it is a quasi-judicial process.

A good question was asked about why a bankrupt would be excluded under section 9(6). I did not mean to be offensive to any bankrupt, but that is a standard section that I took from other legislation. Under it, persons are disqualified if they are "sentenced ... to a term of imprisonment or penal servitude" or they are adjudicated bankrupts. It would not be appropriate to have someone who is currently sentenced to a term of imprisonment on the Parole Board, but I take the point about a bankrupt. It probably appears unfair that a bankrupt would be precluded. Such people are not in a position of conflict when it comes to considering applications from parole applicants. Former prisoners who have been rehabilitated should also be able to be considered for membership on this panel. They have managed to come out of the process.

Deputy Chambers stated that he was opposed to nominees by groups. There are different ways of handling matters for these boards. Either applications are made through the Public Appointments Service, PAS, or Top Level Appointments Commission, TLAC, or bodies recommend people. On paper, it is great to get people to apply via the PAS. My view, which may be based on prejudice instead of fact, is that that will often not supply the best people. I have included the Irish Penal Reform Trust in this Bill. If we asked it to nominate a body to the Parole Board, we would get a good nominee. If we put an ad in the newspaper, we may get good people, but it would be hit or miss.

I thank members for their contributions.