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

Sinn Féin will not oppose this legislation. We will support it. It is worthy and has certainly been long delayed. However, it has its flaws and there are difficulties with it. The primary one which all of us are conscious of is the fact that the nearest jurisdiction to us is outside the remit of this legislation because it is now outside the European Union. That will be a difficulty for many people who might find themselves falling under this legislation, either as British citizens living in this State who may end up in prison and want to return to Britain, or as Irish citizens living in Britain who may want to return to Ireland to complete their sentence. Whatever amendments are required, it is unfortunate that they are not already provided for in the Bill and that we will have to come back to them at a later stage. Will the Minister inform us why there has been a delay? What are the technical difficulties with making the Bill all-encompassing, particularly as we recognise the largest cohort of citizens that might fall under this legislation are with our nearest neighbour?

The essence of what the legislation is attempting to do is to ensure that where people are sentenced for whatever reason in whichever country, their families, in general, would not also suffer because of their distance from the location in which the person is sentenced. That is laudable and is something we will support. However, an issue that also must be given due consideration is the position of the victims of crime. We are all conscious, particularly where people are victims of violent, perhaps sexual, crime, that there may be a fear that the person who is convicted might quickly be returned to his or her own country, where there could be a regime that would see him or her released early. The Minister of State referred in his contribution to pardons and so on. That is a very difficult thing for people to face and there needs to be a due recognition in that regard. He indicated that there is provision throughout the legislation for the sentenced person to be consulted, but the victim of a crime should also be consulted. That is something that needs to be at least considered in some way. Too often, even in this jurisdiction, we hear of people who have been the victim of serious crime or serious assault and the perpetrator has been sentenced and sent to prison but is released early and is at large, and the first the victim knows about it is when he or she, or a member of his or her family, meets the perpetrator on the street. Victims are not informed by the State when such circumstances arise. If that were to happen in a situation where these people are going back to anther state, it is a difficulty we need to address. It could be addressed in some way in this legislation and I suggest to the Minister of State that it needs to be done.

In regard to the rehabilitation of prisoners and the regime in place in this State, there certainly have been great efforts and some progress in that respect in recent years. However, we still have a very large problem in respect of reoffending, with between 50% and 60% of prisoners released from Irish prisons going on to offend again. That is quite a high rate by international standards and certainly by European standards. Many EU member states have much lower rates and better systems in place to ensure people do not reoffend. Much of that, as I see it, comes down to the way the prison system is structured and the supports that are put in place for people while they are in prison and when they are released. Usually, people who find themselves involved in criminal activity, particularly those engaged in violent, drug-related activity, live chaotic lives that are outside the norm most of us experience. Returning from prison to that type of chaotic life is really just putting them back to where they began and, eventually, back to prison. That is the difficulty.

In some jurisdictions, the prison experience is different. It is about training prisoners to understand that the type of life they have come from is not the norm and is not healthy, good, reasonable or acceptable. It is about ensuring prison can be a place where they learn to live a different life. That is the model we need to try to put in place. I recognise that efforts have been made to get us there but we need to redouble those efforts and put more resources into achieving change. If we reduce the rate of reoffending, that is targeting the resources exactly where they need to go and it clearly will reduce the volume of crime that is happening. It would be a valid and appropriate way to do that. We often hear people say that we are soft on prisoners and too easy on them. We need to have a mature attitude to dealing with these issues. The attitude of "lock them up and throw away the key" does not work and has not worked in other jurisdictions. I have in mind in particular a country on the other side of the Atlantic, which has the highest number of prisoners per head of population in the world and whose prison population continues to grow. There must be other ways of doing this, which is not to say that we should not have a criminal justice system that is responsive to people's needs and delivers for them.

The other side of this is that we also must ensure we have the relevant levels of resources, not just for our Prison Service and the rehabilitation service that is provided for people coming out of prison but also for our law enforcement services. We need to ensure An Garda Síochána and all the other resources that are there to deal with criminal activity are strong and robust and have international contacts and liaison capability with other police forces in other states. I acknowledge that liaison takes place but it needs to happen in a more co-ordinated fashion. I am aware of cases where An Garda Síochána, with its best efforts, has been unable to get the kind of co-operation it would expect to get from other European states. That is unfortunate and it needs to change. If we are bringing in legislation on mutual recognition of sentences, we also need to have a mutual recognition of law enforcement and greater co-operation between member states in that respect.

Clearly, there is a focus on rehabilitation and making it easier for prisoners to be able to come out to an environment where they are less likely to reoffend and to be closer to their locality and family. We also need to recognise that in many states in Europe, particularly when we look to the farther reaches of eastern Europe, there are regimes that are not as suitable as we would like them to be and which do not even meet the standard we have in this country in respect of dealing with people in an appropriate manner and putting rehabilitative resources around them. We need to approach this with a caution that we are not sending people to places where they have less chance of social rehabilitation and less chance of coming out of prison better than they went into it. There is a sense of needing to be very much guarded around how all of this works.

Of course, we also need to understand that while police forces must co-operate more closely across international boundaries, and judicial process must do the same, the criminal elements are already spread right across all jurisdictions and recognise no boundaries. International communications and the way technology has moved in recent years have made the world a small place, mainly for the good but also for the ill in terms of how criminal networks are now able to operate. Indeed, it seems they have the capability to operate seamlessly around the globe, never mind across Europe. We must have a recognition of that, which this legislation goes some way to doing. It is very focused on what it wants to do and most of its provisions are welcome. However, I would put a particular emphasis on the importance of the victims of crime, their part in all of this and how they can be represented in the legislation. Many victims' experiences have left them with a sense that they have been left out of the process. Even in standard criminal law cases, as it stands today in our system, the victim is treated as no more than an ordinary witness. When we are talking about taking a person who has been sentenced for a serious crime in Ireland and sending him or her somewhere else, we should consult the victim of that crime. Even if the views of victims do not influence the outcome, they would at least feel they had been consulted and that the situation had been explained to them in terms of what was happening and what the merit was in going down that particular route. I recognise that each case will be taken on its individual merits and a Minister will have to weigh up the circumstances and, in some cases, issue a warrant of transfer. The Minister of State mentioned that there may be as few as ten or 12 such cases per annum. It would not be too much to suggest that the victim should also be consulted in such small numbers of cases as may arise.

I assure hin that we will support this legislation. However, I ask that the points I have raised be taken on board.

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