Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

This is not a matter of any great moment. It is a technical matter that ought to be put right since no longer can prison governors take recognisance from people granted bail in the District Court and remanded in custody pending the entering of a recognisance. It is not the substance of the Bill that deserves treatment this evening, but rather how this situation should have come about that this logistical difficulty for the Prison Service has been inadvertently created.

I know it is not customary for ministerial colleagues to reflect on each other in terms of the discharge of their legislative functions in the House; it is especially unlikely when they are colleagues from other brethren in another place. I notice that the present Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform manages to do it but in that very sophisticated and euphemistic way one might miss unless one reads carefully his text. This is what he has to say about his predecessor, Mr. Michael McDowell:

While I appreciate that in an ideal world [that is a Fianna Fáil world] it should not be necessary to introduce a short piece of legislation such as this in order to tidy up what could be called a loose end, sometimes this cannot be avoided. Minor conflicting provisions can sometimes be inadvertently overlooked when multiple Bills are being progressed within a short timescale.

That is the present Minister's view of his predecessor — these minor conflicting provisions can sometimes be inadvertently overlooked when multiple Bills are being progressed within a short timescale. This evening I was reading what the Leas-Cheann Comhairle said in terms of the legislative style of the previous Minister. Expressed somewhat more trenchantly than the Minister expressed it, that is exactly what he said about the legislative style of the former Minister, Mr. McDowell. That is the main lesson to be taken from this. This is not the first time this has happened. It happened in the sexual offences Act also. Who knows as the year goes by whether some of the other legislation rushed through will not similarly be shown to have been fallible in some way.

It is remarkable that it should come to this so quickly. The former Minister, who was a very considerable parliamentarian, especially when on this side of the House, when he changed sides, changed his view of the role of the Oireachtas. He began to see the Oireachtas as an impediment on the way to him enacting legislation that he knew was right and good for us. He thought the role of parliament was to rubber stamp the latest Bill he decided to bring before the House. That was very regrettable. As you remarked, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, when holding the post I now hold, he often brought in more amendments to a Bill than sections in the Bill to start with. As I said on a previous occasion about the explanatory memorandum, the Minister never stood still long enough to create an explanatory memorandum in the case of much of the legislation he introduced. I wonder if this will be a lesson to us.

Precepts were laid down here for the legislative process whereby one got two weeks' sight of a Bill before one was required to address the broad principle on Second Stage. There was a similar period before Committee Stage and a short period between the end of Committee Stage and Report Stage. It is equally important that the opportunity is available at the end of Committee Stage to reflect before Report and Final Stages. As Shakespeare would have said, that was "more honoured in the breach than the observance" in the last parliament. That was a great pity and it leaves one lacking in confidence about some of the legislation that was rushed through. That is more especially the case when one has to agree with Mr. Michael O'Higgins SC, quoted by Deputy Flanagan, that one suspects that some of it was put through for political motivation close to a general election. That was not a sufficiently good reason to bring in dramatic changes to the criminal law.

Will this abuse of parliamentary process end here? It happened frequently and not only with the former Minister, Mr. Michael McDowell, whose energy I admired in the last parliament. Other Ministers did it too. One has to conclude that it is part of the growing disdain for this House, the Oireachtas and the parliamentary process that the Executive knows best and the Executive arrogates to itself all power.

If there is one dominant party in permanent office it lends itself to that abuse of parliament. There are inevitably people, given that they are intelligent, in the permanent Government who begin to look to see which side of their bread is buttered and they tend to act to acquiesce in things that they would not acquiesce in if there was a healthy alternative Government elected by the people. One cannot blame the permanent Government for that, one has to blame us on this side of the House. It is an unhealthy situation where on the hoof a Minister can be facilitated and backed up to make changes in the law, on inadequate reflection and insufficient consultation, creating in this case this type of logistical difficulty for the Prison Service. There is no doubt it could be of greater consequence.

The Minister tells us that the only issue at stake here is simply the question of who is authorised to take a recognisance, that the terms or conditions of bail are not at issue and there is nobody on bail who is not properly entitled. I take it all of that is true. I would like to hear the Minister say when this came to light. The change in the Act that reversed the earlier provision is effective since 1 July. When did it first come to notice? Can we be sure that recognisances were not accepted by a person not appropriately designated under the law as it has stood until today? Was there any incident where a District Court judge could not be found at a weekend or whenever to comply with the law as it has been up to today given the impact of the reversing of the earlier terms? It seems somewhat remarkable that there should have been no incidents of inconvenience caused to the Irish Prison Service when a District Court judge could not be found and there was no alternative arrangement in place.

It should give us all pause for thought on the notion that legislation is the solution to all our difficulties in today's criminal environment and the difficulties that are daily reported in the newspapers. The law must change to accommodate and acknowledge the changes taking place in society, which are inevitable. However, it must change after a period of adequate reflection, consultation, discussion and public debate. There will always be a necessity to change the law and modernise it to enable it to combat new developments in the criminal underworld for example. However, the biggest issue confronting us at the moment is the issue of law enforcement. According to the figures the Minister gave to Deputy Shortall, of some 137 murders since 1998 there have only been 20 convictions, approximately 15%. That is clearly a cause for concern and the detection rate for gun murders has been falling. One of the new breed of vicious criminal overlords would draw the conclusion of having a reasonably good prospect of escaping detection and paying the price for such criminal activity. That ought to be the focus of the Minister and others in the House. I am not suggesting that where legislative change is necessary we should not make that change.

Regarding enforcement and all that goes with it, I started this morning with a meeting about anti-social behaviour in my constituency. The extent of the phenomenon of anti-social behaviour that ordinary law-abiding people must put up with is of great concern. In that case the people in Jobstown are extremely upset that the commitment to install closed circuit television will not proceed because of an underestimate in the budget. As the funding is now somewhat short the system cannot be installed, which is a great pity because of the extent and scale of anti-social behaviour in that area. Regarding the community policing of the area, one person has been taken off and another has been injured, which means there is scarcely any effective community policing in the area. I suspect that is repeated in many urban areas — the circumstances are somewhat different in certain rural areas. However, if we have that kind of difficulty with the enforcement of the law, the reforms introduced are either not yet working or were not sufficient in themselves, which also needs attention.

I agree with Deputy Charles Flanagan on the lesson of this particular late-night legislating. As the Minister said, in an ideal world this type of thing should not happen. One wonders how it did happen. We will hear that story in four or five years. Are the people concerned with the drafting so different and separate that there was no comparing of notes? Was the rush such that they did not have time or was it purely an accidental omission? I accept entirely the Minister's word that nobody is on bail who should not be on bail and that no substantive issue exists here. However, I find it very difficult to accept that this has not impacted on incidents where recognisance could not be entered because of what has happened here.

I will close with a plea that we should revert to good practice in terms of addressing the heavy legislative schedule on the Minister's plate. In fairness to his predecessor, he put through much legislation. It must be a very heavy onus on the departmental officials. However, in this area we are dealing with life and death, freedom and imprisonment, etc. It is scarcely an area into which we should rush without permitting the kind of public debate that can tease out some of these more difficult issues rather than finding ourselves having to deal with the legislation after it has been enacted by this House. I hope the Minister at the outset of his career as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform feels that he is able to say to us that the normal good legislative process will be observed in this House in the future. I do not anticipate any party on this side of the House wanting to withhold from the Minister the kind of consent we gave on this occasion if there is a necessity to put urgent legislation through the House for a genuine purpose. However, in the normal course of doing our business here we ought to be given time to reflect, take professional advice, consult and hear inputs from community and professional organisations that wish to comment about the operation of the law.

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