Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Again, this replicates the provision that was in the original Act. We are talking about a revocation of a parole order. When a person is given parole it is legally quite complicated. The person has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment and he or she is being released from prison. That has to be effected. The proposed legislation will effect this through the issuing of a parole order. Obviously, there must be some power to put the person back into prison if he or she breaches the terms of the order. In this legislation, that is done by providing a section that deals with a revocation of the parole order. As the Minister has said, there can also be a variation of the parole order. It is to be hoped it may not be necessary for the person to be put back into prison if it is the case that the parole order has been breached in some respect. If it was breached in a very material or egregious way it would require revocation of the order. This provision, however, permits there to be a variation of it also.

I note the proposed new section 34 and the unusual term, “Persons unlawfully at large", which is used elsewhere in our legal system. It designates what happens when a parole order has been made with conditions, when those conditions have been breached, when a revocation of the parole order is issued and what one does with the person who is out in the community with a revoked parole order. This proposal seeks to categorise the person as a person unlawfully at large. This makes it an offence for the person to be unlawfully at large, and it entitles a member of An Garda Síochána - without a warrant - to arrest the person who is unlawfully at large. I will be supporting the amendments.

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