Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have good news in respect of these amendments and the spirit of these amendments in terms of some recent developments. Each of these provisions has merit and I am fully in agreement with the spirit of the amendments. However, I intend to make these provisions outside this Act. I will go through the detail in order that Deputies are aware of the particular issues involved.

Obviously, we do not have any jurisdiction over convictions in another member state. That is absolutely clear, because every state has different criminal penalties for the same criminal offence. For example, in some countries a particular offences carries a penalty of imprisonment, while in other countries the same offence may carry a fine. We could not have a spent convictions regime for convictions in other states that is structured as this Bill is structured, because the provisions are based on the sentence of a court rather than the specific offence.

However, earlier this week I attended the meeting the justice Council of Ministers. At the meeting it was agreed in principle that spent convictions would not be disclosed between member states under a new EU directive. That is to be welcomed. I believe it will meet the spirit of what Deputies have said. Obviously, we must await the conclusions of the negotiations on the directive in order to give effect to it in law. The directive in question will be given effect in the criminal records (information) Bill, which the Government has already approved for drafting. At the moment, I cannot broaden the scope of this Bill to include the question of convictions in other states. That will have to be dealt with in accordance with the directive currently under negotiation in any case. However, I believe it is a progressive move at a European level and I believe it is the right thing to do.

I agree with amendments Nos. 56 and 57 in principle. Again, I have a difficulty in that notification of convictions to other states falls outside the scope of this Bill. Again, we cannot legislate on how other states assess the relevance of particular convictions, given the very different penalties that apply in different states in respect of the same offences.

We cannot prevent any state from requiring an Irish person travelling abroad to provide a written statement of any criminal convictions. However, as I indicated earlier, I have made provision outside this Bill in regard to the criminal record information that the Garda will include in police certificates. I recently wrote to the Garda Commissioner advising that the offences which are not disclosed in Garda vetting applications for persons working with children should also not be included in police certificates. That will be of significant assistance in dealing with the issues we have discussed.

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