Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Finian McGrath might like to visit Limerick as he would return more enlightened than he was last week when he made unfortunate comments to the media. That is, however, an issue for another day.

I compliment Deputy Jim O'Keeffe on bringing the Bill before the House. While I and the Deputy do not agree on whether it will achieve its intended objectives, the Bill gives Deputies an opportunity to discuss the wider issue of sentencing, an important concern, and send a message to the Judiciary outlining the Legislature's views on its sentencing policy. Fewer subjects generate greater emotion than sentencing. All Deputies will be aware from meetings with constituents that people respond emotionally to sentences handed down by the Judiciary without knowing some of the mitigating or underlying factors of the cases in question. People will always have an opinion on whether an individual received too severe or too lenient a sentence. This highlights that lack of consistency in sentencing has become a major problem, which is bringing the law, courts and Judiciary into disrepute.

The Bill also gives Deputies an opportunity to express our views on sentencing policy. The Judiciary has taken much too liberal an approach to sentencing. A person who, having taken alcohol, gets into a fight on a Saturday night and kicks another person in the head while lying on the ground should know before going out that such a crime will result in him or her spending a long period in custody. The House should send out a message that anyone who rapes or sexually assaults a woman, especially an under age girl, the issue which has dominated business this week, will spend an extraordinarily long time behind bars. Unfortunately, this is not the message being sent out by the Judiciary. If anything, this debate offers the House an opportunity to send this message to the Judiciary.

While I welcome Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's initiative to deal with the underlying issues of transparency and consistency in sentencing, I understand a steering committee of the Courts Service is addressing these issues. Extensive research is being carried out nationally and internationally, including in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and England, to determine how the system can be made more consistent. Although the Bill strives to achieve greater consistency, it is probably premature to enact the legislation pending the outcome of the steering committee's deliberations. We should await its report before re-examining Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's proposals in light of its recommendations.

Sentencing is a matter for the judge in the court and is, therefore, a subjective decision. The judge in each case must take all the circumstances into account. The information the Bill seeks to obtain from the Courts Service does not capture underlying factors such as background, motivation, previous history, provocation and so forth, none of which can be provided in the simple form sought in these proposals.

In an ideal world we would have a sentencing register, notwithstanding the substantial resources which would be required to compile it. However, the House should first await the outcome of the deliberations of the Courts Service's steering committee before re-examining the Bill.

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