Seán Connick (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the justice for victims initiative recently announced by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern. The Minister gave a comprehensive outline of his proposals to the House last night. These proposals mark a radical change in the way in which victims of crime interact with the criminal justice system. It is significant that the justice for victims initiative will comprise a mixture of legislative and administrative proposals. This approach of offering both legislative and administrative change is a pragmatic response to the needs of victims of crime and will avoid the bureaucratic difficulties that might arise if the legislative proposals placed before the House by Fine Gael were accepted.

In recent days, victim support agencies have lobbied Members on all sides of the House to express their concerns regarding proposed victims' rights legislation. Victims of crime and the support agencies which assist them through their trauma should be reassured that the justice for victims initiative will be based in large measure on the recommendations of the balance in the criminal law review group, chaired by Dr. Gerard Hogan. With representatives of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the legal academic community, this group also included a representative from the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime.

The report of the Hogan group, and the subsequent proposals adopted from it, are based exclusively on the needs of the victims of crime in an Irish legal context. Likewise, the justice for victims initiative is framed solely in the context of current deficiencies in the Irish legal system rather than being presented as a solution possibly based on another country's laws. The initiative is based on the experience of victims of crime in Ireland. I commend Dr. Hogan and the other members of his review group on their report. Their findings will have a lasting effect on victims of crime when they are implemented through the justice for victims initiative.

Unfortunately, many of us will be a victim of crime at some point. There is no doubt that crime has a lasting physical and psychological effect on the victim and his or her family and friends. The justice for victims initiative is not the first programme to be implemented by the Government in support of victims of crime. In the last year alone, the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and his predecessor in the justice portfolio, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, established the anti-human trafficking unit to provide support for the victims of human trafficking, Cosc, to provide support to victims of domestic violence, and the National Commission on Restorative Justice, which is studying the possible introduction of a victim-focused restorative justice scheme. A former Fine Gael Minister for Justice, Ms Nora Owen, who is now a member of the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime, acknowledged this morning that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is making strong progress in accepting the recommendations of the commission and expressed support for his decision to establish an executive office in his Department to support victims of crime.

The House has two choices when it comes to implementing proposals to support victims of crime. We can adopt the Fine Gael proposals before us, the majority of which may have been drafted in response to the needs of victims of crime in other jurisdictions. These proposals will only serve to add to the levels of bureaucracy already faced by agencies and bodies working in the criminal justice system. Alternatively, we can wait some months until the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is in a position to present the full details of his victims of crime initiative to the House.

That initiative is based on the best advice available regarding victims of crime in an Irish context. The findings of the Hogan report, on which the Minister's initiative is largely based, were fully informed by the needs of Irish victims of crime and identified the areas where support services must be improved. The Minister's proposal to introduce the victims of crime initiative through a combination of legislation and administrative change will avoid the additional layers of bureaucracy which the Fine Gael proposals might bring. The Minister will be in a position to place his legislative proposals before the House in early 2009. We should avoid adopting the hastily put together proposals currently before the House and instead afford the Minister the opportunity to present his legislation.

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