Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which did a fine job in assisting us with interpreting the Bill. Broadly speaking, the Bill is non-contentious and is aimed at two distinct issues. With regard to the sentencing of repeat sexual offenders, these provisions originated in a Private Members’ Bill, sponsored by the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, and subsequently adopted by the Government.

Essentially, the Bill proposes a new section 58 for the Criminal Justice (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, to be headed commission of another offence specified in Schedule within a specified period. This proposed new section mirrors section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007, which provides for a regime of enhanced custodial sentences for offenders who reoffend. The basic idea is that where an adult is convicted on indictment of one of the serious offences scheduled to the Act and is sentenced to at least five years and where he or she is subsequently convicted of another scheduled offence within seven years of the first conviction, the court must sentence the defendant to a minimum of three-quarters of the maximum permissible sentence for that subsequent offence. However, there is an important proviso. If the court is satisfied that it would be disproportionate in the circumstances to impose such a sentence, the court may deviate from it. This mirrors section 25 of the 2007 Act. Tom O’Malley describes this as “a significant safety valve”, in what would otherwise be “quite a swingeing provision that could result in remarkably harsh sentences for certain offences which, while inherently serious for the most part, might not always merit the minimum sentences apparently required by the section.”

The Oireachtas Library and Research Service paper states that no regulatory impact assessment was published alongside the Bill. The service is not aware of any assessment which may have been conducted by the Department regarding potential costs, implications or expected impact of the Bill. It again quotes Tom O’Malley on the 2007 precedent:

How much impact s[ection] 25 has had on sentencing practice is impossible to identify. Arguably, a court sentencing a person to whom it applies should always begin by identifying the minimum term to be specified and then decide if that term would be disproportionate in all the circumstances. One suspects, however, that s[ection] 25 seldom impinges on day-to-day practice, save to the extent that courts will have regard to relevant previous convictions as a matter of course.

If the Minister of State has an insight on this, it would be useful to hear it.

See this speech in context