Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 20 is around the issue of the risk management team and its communication with the victim in these cases. What is being proposed here is that there will be a written agreement whereby a particular member of the team will be nominated as a contact point for the victim. In the case where the offender has served a sentence and is about to be released or is being released that they provide relevant information to the victim, including a notification of the release as soon as practical after the release has occurred and a copy of updated photographs of the offender, and any other such information considered necessary to avoid, mitigate or manage the risk posed by the offender.

On different occasions we have all come across circumstances where individuals have had the shock of their lives when they met the person that had done them serious harm on the street, in the supermarket or wherever and were unaware they had been released or that they were back in the community. Somebody will have told them that the person is at large again and that they have seen them. It has been a very traumatic experience for the victim. We all know that the person who goes to prison is not going to be there forever and that they are going to get out at some stage. There needs to be a process to prepare the victim for that because in many of these cases the victim has been left behind or certainly feels they have been left behind in the past. I think there is an opportunity in this legislation to do so.

In the initial draft of this legislation, I thought that one would have to inform the victim when the person was being released but probably that would not be appropriate. Certainly, as soon as practical after release, it would be important that the victim be made aware of that and as much preparation as possible should be provided to the victim.