Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

The Bill is definitely welcome and will certainly improve how we run the country. The idea that the Irish will embrace the notion of forgiveness is to be welcomed also because, at the moment, it does appear that we are a pretty unforgiving lot. If a person commits a crime we punish him, but the principle behind such a punishment was, first, to deter reoffending and, second, to rehabilitate the offender. If we are to welcome such a person back into society, we must give him a clean bill of health in order to start again. If such a person is to have a tag forever, it reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. In that story, a girl who was presumed to have committed an offence was obliged to wear a letter on her dress for three years to signify the crime she had committed. In the context of this Bill, a lack of forgiveness is very unfair. The six month period is a bit crazy as well. All crime needs to be forgiven unless it is very serious and the offender is a danger to society. The blanket ban on certain areas of employment is completely unfair also. If we want to give people an incentive to reform, we must offer them a chance to move back into society with a clean bill.

I will finish on the notion of forgiveness. Members may have read in the newspapers that there is a possibility I could be declared bankrupt and, if so, I will get thrown out of this place. I think it is an absolutely ludicrous idea, however. In this State one is bankrupt for 12 years, which is very unforgiving. It is one year in Britain and America for most bankruptcy offences. One can commit many different crimes and still not be thrown out of this House, but if one is declared bankrupt one is, seemingly, not fit for purpose here. When they brought in the law in 1923, one was considered a moral degenerate if one happened to become bankrupt, and one was no longer fit to be in the ethical House.

See this speech in context