Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

Clearly tougher sentences are needed to deal with serious drug traffickers and serious drug offences. I support an approach that will involve such sentences. When I spoke about tougher sentences on the last Criminal Justice Bill and, in particular, the removal of the exceptional circumstances clause for a second conviction, the Minister initially indicated that he had major constitutional concerns. The phrase he used at the time was that his heart was with my argument but his head was against me. In regard to these proposals is the Minister satisfied they will stand up constitutionally and that the concerns he had previously on the case I was making for tougher sentences against drug offenders will stand up?

I wish to raise the issue of the length of time to be served. Do I take it that on the issue of a ten-year sentence that effectively, under the existing code of remission of sentences, it will be no more than seven and a half years, that the automatic remission will apply to the ten-year sentence?

My last point follows on the point raised by Deputy Howlin. From the point of view of consistency of law, how do we relate the approach we are adopting for the offence, now being created, for drugs valued at more than €500,000 with the approach in existing law for drugs exceeding a value of €13,000 and the mandatory sentences that still stand for such lower values? What consistency exists between the two legislative proposals?

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