Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to speak to the Bill and I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for bringing it forward. One of the main provisions of the Bill is that in considering bail, a court shall refuse application if the court is satisfied that such a refusal is reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence by that person. Two weeks ago, we debated the setting up of a commission of inquiry into the tragic slaughter of Mr. Shane O'Farrell. We can consider the number of times the gentleman responsible for that crime was on bail. Surely he was a threat, particularly as he was wanted in Northern Ireland. This is not as good as it looks.

It will come as a major shock to people to hear that this is not already part of existing legislation for bail. We are way behind the curve in trying to deal with bail laws. There is a laxity in the law and there is a real need to pursue Private Members' options like that which we are debating this evening. There is a clear need to reform spending on legal aid in bail laws. The spending is phenomenal. There is an absence of any mention of the widespread abuse of legal aid in our bail laws, which is incomprehensible. There is an open door or cheque book, which is simply unacceptable.

Section 2 of the 2016 bail legislation referred to the number and frequency of any previous convictions of the accused person for serious offending and it stopped short of linking this to legal aid but it must be linked. Parliamentary questions I have submitted to the Minister for Justice and Equality reveal that total expenditure for criminal legal aid for 2011 to 2015 amounted to €252.2 million, which is a staggering amount. The figure does not include a further €162.3 million spent on civil legal aid. In light of this level of funding, the Department and Minister must conduct an analysis of the link between abuse of legal aid and the application of bail laws. They are interlinked. Access to legal aid, especially in cases where bail is persistently violated, must be reviewed and taken into account the next time a person applies for bail. It is not fun and games we are having.

Section 3 of the Bill refers to electronically monitoring a person's movements while on bail so it can be established if he or she commits an offence while on bail. This is a no-brainer because there is an issue here. The Minister has informed me that provision has already been made in this regard. Has it been implemented, however? I want him to clarify that and, in particular, how many times the provision has been used. The Minister is aware that I raised this matter with his predecessor, Deputy Francis Fitzgerald, when I sought to clarify why it had taken ten years to enforce a provision of the Criminal Justice Act sanctioning the use of electronic tagging. It is too long. The former Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, and the current Minister, Deputy Flanagan, must step up to the plate and sort out this tagging straight away.

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