Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, although it is not a debate to which I wanted to contribute because the Bill plays to the crowd and looks for the simplest form of kudos it can. I was not going to speak on it because I did not feel it was worthwhile. Having examined the submission of the IPRT, and examined the Bill itself I felt it was important to speak on it and register my objection to, and complains about it.

The Bill is an attempt at raising the flag of populism to make it look as though we are being strong and doing something on bail and criminality, but it will not do anything except probably make the situation a lot worse if it is enacted. Our neighbours next door said they were tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, and that was their mantra. It is also the mantra that could be used about the Bill. It is too simple to think if we stop bail, we will solve the problems with criminality throughout the State. I do not believe it would do so. The IPRT outlined the improvements it could make to the bail system. If we implemented them, that would have a greater impact on people who are on bail for crimes and criminal offences and on recidivism, which is important.

Most of the people in our criminal justice system are addicts or unemployed or in need of support from the State rather than in need of being made criminals. Putting people in jail while they are waiting for their court case to come up will increase the crime levels because there is no better place to learn how to become a good criminal than jail. If we are serious about preventing crime, we should put in place the supports outlined in the submission from the IPRT because then we could do something to prevent crime being committed by people on bail. However, that is too difficult. It is not simple and it would be very hard to justify to the public that we were introducing a system to make bail more humane and make it work for people to reduce crime in the State. The cost has been outlined clearly. The cost of jailing people will increase significantly and will place more demands on the criminal justice system, which will move more money away from preventing recidivism, but at least they will all be in jail anyway so that will be good. In 2017, the average cost of a staffed prison place in the State was €68,000 per year or €188 per day. We are stating we should increase this amount and ensure more money will be spent on it. That €188 per day would probably ensure that 40 or 50 people would not commit a crime again if we invested it where it would be far more useful than jailing people for offences.

A previous speaker spoke about people being in jail for offences. Much has been made about how the figures have been manipulated in terms of the CSO. It will not quote Garda figures for murders now because it cannot stand over them. How many of the figures relating to people who commit offences are genuine? If somebody is arrested for a particular offence, the garda will put it to him that ten or 20 other offences of a similar type took place and that if he admits to all those offences his court date will go a lot easier. People admit to committing crimes that they might not have had anything to do with. That improves the solved crime rate and it looks good in the reports that go to the Government and are published every year. The crimes included in these great figures might not have been solved at all.

The Bill should put in place more proactive supports and ways to make bail effective in order that people can do more than just sit around waiting for their trial to take place. We also have to question why it takes so long for trials to take place. Perhaps this is something else we address to make the bail regime more effective.

There always will be cases where people on bail commit crimes. That is wrong but this is a knee-jerk way of resolving those cases. There have to be other ways of doing so and we should ensure they are followed rather than putting forward defective laws such as this. The Bill might have the right to go to Committee Stage and be sorted out there, but it would be more worthwhile to use that time be used for Bills that have had their constitutionality checked and that Members can stand over before Second Stage is taken. I will be opposing the Bill.

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