Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

If I may be blunt, I would regard the trafficking of children as heavy grade criminality rather than people trying to bring their second cousin into the country. That is not trafficking, but there are those who traffic children in order to exploit them, a most grievous offence. Matters now removed from the Bill include serious offences against the State. We have seen the heads of the trafficking Bill, which will not be introduced by this Government. However, I hope that it will be brought in very early in the next Dáil, since the area needs legislation.

I will delay the House no longer, other than to say that I am more content with this version of section 24. I have moved from a position of being implacably opposed to mandatory sentencing to being convinced that, in the face of the drugs plague faced by this country, I must reluctantly support it in certain narrow areas. However, I am against its becoming the norm. I am totally opposed to the American system of "three strikes and you're out" whereby the prison system warehouses those whom one dislikes in society. One creates an underclass of people whom, after three "strikes", one locks up for ever. I know that the Minister is not doing that here, but his original proposals smacked of it.

I did not like those echoes, but even the current position would be better met by Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's proposal whereby this House would, in consultation with others, set a tariff for a first and repeat offence in each category, with judicial discretion regarding the appropriate tariff for each. That is a better approach and manifestation of the separation of powers between the Oireachtas and the Judiciary. We are in the business of laying down the law, but its implementation and application regarding international law and the Constitution are matters for the courts. I am very much attracted to Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's proposal as a better way of achieving our objectives, although I now believe that they will be achieved by the so-called mandatory sentencing, which is no longer so.

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