Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment our justice spokesman, Deputy O'Callaghan, on bringing forward this Bill. I was in my office earlier when the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, was responding to the contribution of Deputy O'Callaghan. I was very disappointed with the Minister's contribution on the Bill.

There is a serious problem. The public are annoyed about the amount of crimes committed when people are on bail. Ordinary people are frustrated in rural and urban areas. They are told that a person is out on bail for three, four, five, six, seven or eight offences. Yet, nothing is done to change it. We had the family of Shane O'Farrell in the House in the recent past. We had a motion discussing Shane O'Farrell's particular case. The person who murdered Shane O'Farrell had been in court eight times in the previous seven or eight months but was never put into custody. That is an extreme example of the way the bail laws and the system are failing people. His family's loss can never be recovered, but the least we can do is change the system so that can never happen again.

When I travel around rural areas, I knock on the doors. Ten or 15 years ago I could have simply pushed and door and it would have opened. Now, only a window will open or someone will squint out at me to see who is there. People are living in fear.

Amending the bail laws will not solve all the issues or stop all the crime. However, repeat offenders have to be taken out of circulation. The Minister referred to person's rights. What about the people against whom the crimes are committed? What about their rights? When repeat offenders are out on bail they believe they have a licence and that they will only get one sentence for whatever amount of crimes they commit. This has to change. As Deputy Curran said, this Bill may be imperfect and it may be that some things in it need to be changed but certainly the laws in force at the moment on how bail operates are wrong and have to change. Let this Bill be a first step to ensure that repeat offenders, when they come into the judicial system, are kept in custody. That way the people in rural and urban Ireland will feel safer. In this way, we will take the first step to reduce crime figures and ensure that the people who commit these crimes are dealt with quickly.

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