Dáil debates

Wednesday, 29 March 2006

Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Motion (Resumed).

 

10:00 pm

Photo of Dan BoyleDan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

This motion is a political nicety. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform would be procedurally quite in order to take this raft of amendments to committee even though it is far out of proportion with the Bill as originally published. It has only been the criticism of the Opposition benches that has brought this motion to the floor. Even the time spent debating this motion over the past two days is out of proportion with the amount of time this House spent debating the Bill on Second Stage. On those grounds we might even anticipate what will follow the Committee Stage in that the Minister has given no guarantee on the number of amendments that will come before this House when the committee returns the Bill to this Chamber. On the mathematical applicator that we could apply between the publication of the Bill and the Committee Stage, we expect a three volume tome to come back on Report and Final Stages because this is the nature and the habit of legislating with this Minister.

In the short time available, I will concentrate on one aspect of the plethora of amendments that the Minister has put before the House, a section that I find most objectionable. Although I am only ankle high to the Minister in terms of achievement, I have 20 years' experience of youth work. That was spent providing diversionary programmes funded pathetically by successive Governments to date. The funding for the youth affairs section in the Department of Education and Science is 0.3% of the budget of that Department. When one's tools are pool tables, table tennis tables and decks of cards, one can see what the State really thinks of diversionary tactics and programmes to provide young people with a safe and comfortable environment in which to socialise and develop properly. That is the reality of this Government's programme. While it is a reality it has inherited from previous Governments, this Government has been in power for nine years and has done nothing to increase exponentially the amount of funding available in that area.

My objection arises from the Minister's attempt in these amendments to change the age of criminal responsibility, which is a direct repudiation of a provision of the Children Act 2001. The Minister did not explain in his opening speech to the debate on this motion why he felt the need to do so but he has stated in public, where most of his policy announcements seem to be made, that he felt that the age of criminal responsibility of 12 was wrong. He further stated that there would be chaos if this section of the Act to which I refer was commenced. The Act to which he refers was presumably passed on the say so of the law officer of that Government, the then Attorney General who is now Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The Minister might like to explain why he, as Attorney General, approved to the Government a provision in a law which he subsequently believes to be wrong and which the Government is now inclined to change.

The Children's Rights Alliance, an umbrella organisation representing 80 non-governmental organisations, has questioned the usefulness of bringing children as young as ten into the criminal justice system. It also points out that it directly undermines the excellent work carried out by the Garda diversion and juvenile liaison programmes. This reflects not merely a lack of joined-up thinking on the part of Government but the devising of policies as repelling magnets. It makes no sense.

The UN standard of minimum rules for the administration of juvenile justice states: "The beginning of that age shall not be fixed at too low an age level, bearing in mind the facts of emotional, mental and intellectual maturity". The Minister may think that a great advertisement for the health and education policies of this Government but the reality is that ten year old children in most developed countries are not considered to have legal responsibility. However, for reasons best known to himself, he has decided this should be an essential element of the Bill. He may, in his normal way, suggest that mine is an even more lily livered liberal approach than he expects of the Green Party but alternatives exist in terms of diversionary programmes for young people, programmes which he and the Government of which he is part have failed to put into practice. This Government must be indicted for passing the Children Act 2001 but failing to implement its provisions. This may partly have been due to the Minister's problems with a number of provisions contained in the Act.

This issue can be linked to the Government's re-jigging of anti-social behaviour orders. The Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science with special responsibility for children indicated a specific form of ASBO for 12 to 18 year olds, a concession which I believe he had to wring from the Minister. Many on the Government benches are uncomfortable with the idea of ASBOs which truly represent cartoon justice. This ticking boxes legislation is intended to give the impression that action is being taken when that is not the case. ASBOs will not be used as a last resort but, as is the case in the United Kingdom, as a means to soften the impact of crime detection and prosecution figures.

The Minister and the Government are engaging in nothing more than headline type legislation, which ill serves this House, the quality of legislation we produce and ultimately will end up producing a justice system that fails to meet the needs of citizens intimidated by criminal behaviour or to help those we seek to divert from such behaviour.

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