Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

——it is a fact that judges deal with a huge volume of cases. We generally do not allow juries to determine penalties. If one is faced with a murderer on one day and on succeeding days with a rapist, a burglar, an assaulter, a white collar thief, a child abuser and somebody in court on a child pornography charge, it allows one to see the broad mass of humanity and to see crimes in a more general context.

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