Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:“ “Act of 1960” means the Criminal Justice Act 1960;

“Act of 2001” means the Children Act 2001;

“Act of 2005” means the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005;

“Act of 2006” means the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006;

“Act of 2007” means the Medical Practitioners Act 2007;

“Act of 2010” means the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of

Cohabitants Act 2010;

“application for parole” has the meaning assigned to it by section 26(3);”.

Amendment Nos. 1 to 11, inclusive, amend and expand the definition and interpretation Part of the Bill. Many of the changes here are for drafting reasons and to ensure a greater level of clarity and legal certainty on the various terms used throughout the Bill. There are few, in particular, that I will mention. On the definition of "victim", the definition of "victim" used here is in line with the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017. The definition of "parole" here is defined as the release from prison, pursuant to a parole order, of a person serving a term imprisonment prior to the expiry of that term. It is important to note that release on parole does not and will not conclude the sentence of the person, who is being allowed the privilege, under certain conditions, of serving the remainder of the term in the community. The definitions of medical professionals are important for those sections of the Bill dealing with the composition of the board and the sections dealing with the powers of the board to obtain expert reports.

Amendment No. 7 inserts a new subsection into section 2 of the Bill, which will mean that where the death of a victim is caused by an offence, the entitlements under the Act for victims to be heard can be exercised by a family member. This must, of course, be anticipated for many of the cases coming to the Parole Board in respect of a decision. The Parole Board will initially only be considering life sentence prisoners, who will in most cases be serving sentences either for murder or manslaughter, although the Bill does provide that this can be extended later by regulation to other prisoners who may be serving long sentences.

Amendment No. 9 is related to amendment No. 7, which inserts a new section 3 into the Bill, which provides a mechanism for dealing with a decision on which a family member may exercise rights under the Bill.Amendment Nos. 7 and 9 reflect the provisions in the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017.

Amendment No. 8 inserts a new subsection (3) into section 2 of the Bill to state that the Bill applies to people who were sentenced to detention when they were a child but are now in an adult prison and that the period that they spent in child detention centre is included when calculating the length of sentence served for the purpose of determining when they first become eligible to be considered for parole. This ensures that prisoners who were sentenced to life as children are treated similarly to those sentenced as adults. This amendment No. 8 also ensures that a person can apply for parole while on temporary release and that any periods that a prisoner spent on temporary release during his sentence can be included for the purpose of calculating when they become eligible to be considered for parole.

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