Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Bill is important as laws protect our general safety and ensure our rights as citizens against abuses by other people and organisations. In order that they work, laws should be effective, capable of implementation and carry weight. Otherwise, what is the point of the law? This is why I and Sinn Féin will be supporting this motion.

Perjury is defined as the offence of wilfully telling an untruth or making a misrepresentation under oath. The High Court recently stated that it is "a sworn statement that the maker knows to be false". It is intended to protect the integrity of trials. It is referred to across a range of legislation in this country and yet there are deficiencies in how it is defined, its position in the statutory framework and the penalties that would be applied as a consequence. If the citizens of this country are to have faith in our legal system, then they need to know there will be penalties imposed on those who go counter to legal directives.

The purpose of this Bill, to place perjury on a statutory footing, is to be commended as it would make the offence easier to prosecute. I also welcome the inclusion in this Bill of the subornation of perjury, which makes it an offence to persuade, induce or otherwise cause another person to make false statements while under oath. This could help to protect those who may be under pressure from elsewhere to make a misleading statement for the purposes of misleading a court or damaging another individual's reputation. The fact that people are not penalised more is damaging to our faith in the justice system. This is because the sins of some, if not punished, will have an effect on the many. In today's society, we are all aware of the challenges that present themselves in this regard. The issue of insurance claims, whether in regard to policies which are domestic in nature, like home or care insurance, or applicable to the wider public, like public liability insurance or insurance for businesses, high-cost policies have limited our ability to carry on with everyday life safe in the knowledge we are fully covered. Why is this? There are many reasons and the blame lies primarily with the insurance industry.

Deputy Pearse Doherty has pursued the issue of high insurance costs for some time. While fraudulent claims contribute to the cost of insurance policies, they are nowhere near being the cause of the insurance rip-off that has become all too apparent in recent years.

10 o’clock

Before making my next point, let me emphasise that the insurance industry is broken because of the industry itself. Any notion that unjustifiable increases in people's policies are mainly due to fraudulent claims, as has been suggested in the past, is misleading, to say the very least. Insurance fraud is an issue but the industry's way of dealing with it apportions blame to people who bear no responsibility at all. Fraud is unjust, damaging to reputations, costly for those targeted and it is against the values we in this House seek to promote. There are a number of cases of insurance fraud that are so blatant and deliberately false that they have come to public attention at a national level. If cases of suspected insurance fraud makes it to the courts, something that emboldens those engaging in the suspected fraud is their ability to make untrue statements. If there is little punishment for people uttering untruths under oath, what is to stop them from doing so? They may subsequently be hit with costs if they are found to be in the wrong, but they will take that chance, at a cost to the State in many cases, because false statements are rarely subject to penalties. One could say that the consequences of this situation fall to the general public through the taxes they pay but also through the insurance policy prices charged to each and every one of us. These are just some of the implications for society of toothless perjury laws.

Criminal prosecution is another issue in which this matter has relevance. Blatant disregard for truth is something that those who have no respect for the law rely on to evade the charges against them. The absence of sanctions for perjury for those who have sought to evade prosecution does little to improve public confidence in a successful prosecution being made. If we allow people to lie, how can we possibly expect them to stop? I want the public to know that this Bill will address false declarations in other areas, including the world of finance, where misleading statements on balance sheets, accounts, reports, returns and similar declarations can have vast implications. These provisions will help to address instances of so-called white-collar crime. The outcomes of those types of cases can be frustrating for the public, leading to the assumption that those who are in a financial position to engage in this kind of unlawful activity can hide behind misleading details. Such details can often be used to confuse the examination process. We are no longer in a world where a person's moral code can be relied upon to ensure that he or she will tell the truth under oath. That is unfortunate but true.

I commend all those who have contributed to the Bill in the course of its way through the Houses. I give it my full support.

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