Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. The issue it addresses has been a running sore for many victims and their families since the ruling on the operation of the Children Act 2001 by Mr. Justice Birmingham. It was a decision that took many people by surprise by taking a narrow interpretation of section 252. However, the situation is what it is and we are where we are. We are now in a position where we are moving the matter forward.

I commend the other Members of both Houses who have done the work to bring the Bill to this point. We all recognise the trauma that many families go through when a family member, particularly a child, is the victim of homicide or a similar crime and cannot be named. The family is denied the element of being able to recognise the child in a formal and public way. I know that members of the media have been vocal on this matter and some have run campaigns to have the decision reversed, all of which has been appropriate and proper. I wish it had been done sooner but we are where we are and we are going in the right direction. I hope this Bill will come into law as quickly as possible.

I spoke at length to an advocate for victims of homicide yesterday. His sister and her two children were killed some time ago, before this particular case came into vogue. He made the resonant point that the pain that the relatives of victims go through is something for which we need to take more consideration. It does not end when the day in court is over and the perpetrator is put behind bars, or whatever. Their pain, suffering and anguish continue and we need to have a clear recognition of that.

Many of the types of cases with which this legislation is concerned, particularly those involving children, are linked to the serious drug crime that exists across the State. I listened with interest to the radio when I was driving up in the car this morning and heard about a child victim of crime who was dismembered and parts of his body were left around different parts of Dublin. There is a search for other parts of his body going on in Drogheda. He could not be named today but he was named last year. It shows the impact of the ruling by Mr. Justice Birmingham.

There is, of course, an issue of young people becoming involved in, and part of, the culture of serious crime and drugs that exists in many communities, including, unfortunately, our inner city and urban areas, but also places all over the country. It is everywhere. There is a problem, particularly in Dublin but in other places too, with the use of crack cocaine among a lot of young people. It is cheap, easy to get and seems to be rampant. I am getting an awful lot of complaints that the Garda is not doing enough to combat that particular problem and that attention and focus need to be brought to the issue. I know that the Minister will soon be moving on to relaxing and preparing for the imminent arrival of her new baby but before she does, I ask her to speak to the Garda Commissioner and anyone else at a senior level within An Garda Síochána in Dublin to get resources put in place to bring attention to the problem. Many people see selling drugs in a low-level way as a low-level crime without a big impact but it has an enormous impact on the communities it affects. It has become very serious in certain areas of Dublin, in particular, and in other areas around the country.

We must consider where we need to go to solve these problems. We cannot only intervene after a court case and when a child, young person or teenager is a victim of crime. Many of the people involved in all of this stuff are of that age. How we prevent those young people going down that path, bring them to a different route and find another way for them is the key to all of this. We must ensure that we put the resources in place. This issue extends beyond the remit of the Minister for Justice and goes into a whole lot of other areas, particularly social work, youth work and all of those things. If resources were put into those areas, it would make a considerable difference in ensuring that young people do not end up in such situations in the first place.

We must think about young people who are the perpetrators of crime and end up in prison. There is considerable cost to the State, including the legal system through which they must go for a trial and the cost of the Garda members, security services and so on to try to deal with them. The State incurs all of that cost because, in the beginning, those people were not given the right chances in life. If we put resources in the right places, we would save a lot of money down the road. I am sure it costs an awful lot of money to keep a young person in Mountjoy for a year, or for ten years in cases of serious crime. If those resources were put into the communities where they live and fall into the wrong company at the right time, it might save money in the long run. There is a big job of work to be done in that regard.

There is also a big job of work to be done in our mental health services and what we can do in that regard. I regularly hear about the issues that arise in that respect, particularly for young people. Some of the issues relate to drug use and the psychotic episodes that young people have when they have a serious problem with drug use and fall into crime as a result. When members of the Garda pick them up, they know those people are a danger to themselves and others and yet there is nowhere to put them. That is a serious problem that needs to be addressed because it has had catastrophic consequences for some people who have been victims of crime as a result of that further down the road.

This legislation makes some effort to go in the right direction. It certainly is dealing with the specific problem of the naming of a person who is a victim of crime. However, I think we need to broaden all of this out. The relatives of victims of crime being able to name the child or adolescent who has died solves only one part of the problem and much more needs to be done to give those family members a voice and a part in the process, and to open up the process for the relatives of victims in these circumstances. I believe the Minister would agree that a piece of work needs to be done to reach further than this small legislative measure, which deals with a particular interpretation of the 2001 Act.

The clear problem that we have in our society is, in many cases, about poverty of ambition and opportunity for many people. We would do well to revert our attention to those issues. A considerable body of work needs to be done in that regard.

There are also issues for people who are perpetrators of serious crime of this nature when they go into prison. They go into a system which, for many of them, does not work and is quite broken. There are issues that must be dealt with in order to provide adequate services and to ensure that people avail of them when they are in prison. There are also issues around the Probation Service and how it works with prisoners when they come out of prison and addresses where they are, what they are doing and how they can move into a different place in life. At the end of the day, we have to make people recognise the harm that they have done and move them to a different place in order that they will not inflict that harm again and become advocates for others to make sure they do not cause similar harm. That is not happening and one of the tragedies of our present criminal justice system is that it does not do enough to ensure that we do not have continual repetition of crime and more people from the same community being sucked into it.

There is a significant amount of work to be done in that regard. The victims and relatives of crime need to have their voices heard in the legislation regarding the children they have lost. They also need to have their voices heard regarding their access to information, in particular in violent cases where someone ends up in prison. They do not know how long a life sentence is and when the perpetrator can seek to get out. The whole system seems to be unbalanced in that regard. The relatives of victims of a serious crime of that nature make a strong case for there to be space for their voices to be heard when it comes to the early stages of the sentence and to the perpetrator being released from prison. It is only if they feel they are protected by the State and that they are a part of the process that they can move on with their lives. I have spoken to people who told me that to their horror they met somebody on the street who had been out of prison for a very serious offence against a family member but they were unaware that the person was out of prison. We should not have that kind of thing happening in society. There is a lot of work to be done.

As far as the Bill goes, I welcome it. It does what it says. I listened to the debate in the Seanad where there were some comments to the effect that the language in the Bill should be clearer. That may well be the case, but I am not prepared to get hung up on that now. We need to get the Bill through the Houses and in place as quickly as possible so that the anguish people suffer is relieved. I will hand over to Deputy Ó Murchú.

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