James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague, Deputy O'Callaghan, on bringing forward this much needed legislation. It is a source of great frustration to the public and to the victims of crime. There is pure astonishment at the number of perpetrators who are already bail for other offences and who have a string of previous convictions. Sometimes, to the knowledge of the Garda and the courts, they are awaiting charging or sentencing on many other offences yet they remain at large to continue to burgle, steal, pilfer and terrorise. Not only is it a source of great frustration and alarm to the public but also to those charged with the security of the State, maintaining public order and defending the public from such crimes, namely the Garda Síochána. Assistant Commissioner John O'Driscoll recently outlined the difficulties when the gardaí were implementing Operation Thor. I commend the force on the latter operation, which involved some great successes. Some of those targeted had a string of offences to their names and many were on bail. Many were repeat offenders and some were quite prolific. Assistant Commissioner O'Driscoll observed at a press conference that the sentences being imposed for such crimes, particularly burglaries, are inadequate deterrents to repeat offending and are being shrugged off in many cases. Many of those involved are committing more burglaries before being sentenced for their original crimes. This highlights the serious concern this is causing for the upper echelons of the Garda as well as for the public.

At a technical level, the Bill seeks to replace the word "may" with "shall" in terms of the sentencing guidelines in section 2(a) of the Act. Judicial discretion does not always work. We know that sometimes if a court may do something it often does not do it. We need look no further than section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act for a comparison. The latter was an attempt to introduce mandatory minimum sentencing for serious offences relating to drugs and the intent to supply. There was provision made for a ten-year minimum sentence for repeat offenders in that regard. It includes a get-out-of-jail clause which states that, in exceptional circumstances, a person could avoid minimum sentencing. Unfortunately, it has been the experience of the courts that almost every offender has been construed as having exceptional circumstances. Those exceptional circumstances have become the norm.

I cite this as an example of where legislation with good intent behind it has been circumvented and where there have been inconsistencies in the judicial approach. Having said that, I commend the recent decision of the Court of Appeal. The court considered a number of burglaries and the difficulties in the consistency of sentencing and tried to impose a reference sentence in a recent judgment, which was reported in The Irish Timesand elsewhere. Tom O'Malley, the legal academic, talked about the matter at length. He commended the judges involved on stating that somebody needs to take the bull by the horns and apply some kind of reference sentencing in order to encourage the courts to be tougher in these kinds of situations and have a criterion and yardstick at hand they can use to apply sentencing.

In a more general sense, there has been a total breakdown of law and order in many rural areas. As both a State and a society, we are still reeling from the widespread closure of Garda stations in 2012 and 2013. In my constituency of Kildare North, five stations were closed along the west Wicklow-north Kildare border, including at Ballymore Eustace, Kill, Hollywood and Dunlavin, leaving that swathe of territory completely exposed to criminality. Those areas continue to be targeted. The stations covered a very large area. Not only was there a Garda presence there but there was a local garda in each station who knew the area, had local intelligence, knew the people, the activity and the rhythms of the area and could keep an eye when things went awry.

I attended a meeting in Broadford, north-west Kildare, at the other end of the constituency, last week and we heard tales of machinery being pilfered and agricultural equipment and farm machinery being taken at will. Often the local gardaí and community are well aware who the perpetrators are. One individual had over 100 previous offences. That continues to occur. That particular area is served by Leixlip Garda station which is an hour's drive away. Gardaí in Enfield and Edenderry are only moments away but cannot respond because of the jurisdictional splits. This is a situation I hope the Minister and Garda management can investigate.

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