Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That gives me an opportunity to start my contribution again.

As Deputy Kenny said, law reform is similar to gardening in that it requires frequent maintenance. There probably have been times when that has not happened and there have been unintended consequences of old legislation that requires updates. It is good to see we are dealing with some of that.

There was some concern that the text of the Bill differed from the heads of the Bill. I would have been somewhat worried about the issue of citizenship but the Minister has addressed that. Hopefully, we will be able to deal with the situation of families with children who fear deportation to a country they have never known.

We definitely need to deal with that issue.

With reference to the amendment of the Bankruptcy Act 1988, we all remember the huge difficulties we had during the financial crash and the fact that we had bankruptcy legislation that was not fit for purpose. We had almost Victorian notions regarding bankruptcy, although the legislation has been updated. We all accept, however, that there are still means to improve it. We are talking about people who find themselves in a difficult set of circumstances. We must do all we possibly can to facilitate them in getting out of that. We had cases of people being in and out of prison on serious charges and spending less time in difficulty than those who faced bankruptcy. As we enter a troubling period with serious economic dangers ahead, we could be looking at more instances of this. Hopefully, that will not be the case, but we need to make sure we have the legislative tools to deal with this.

We all know businesses that are under severe pressure due to inflation, particularly in energy costs. We have all spoken on various issues concerning particular businesses and families and households. At times, we need to find more bespoke solutions. There will be a need for more of those as we continue. As I said, we need to ensure we have a decent bankruptcy process so that people will be able to resolve their debts and businesses will be able to earn their way back to profitability. A fair and clear system is what everybody is looking for.

We need to do a piece of work on the offence of obstructing the sheriff. We have all seen and heard of repossessions and evictions where gardaí have been present to back up security firms. We have seen security firms manhandle tenants. We need to address this. I accept that the Garda has work to do in maintaining public order but we need to make sure there are also protections for tenants who find themselves in difficult circumstances. We need to do everything to ensure security firms operate within the law and are subject to sufficient controls and constraints. Tenants' peace and security can be threatened by eviction.

The law needs to protect property rights but we are all aware of the circumstances we are in. One solution that is required is a moratorium on evictions. As I said, there are particular worries with regard to businesses and farms. With anything related to evictions, we need to make sure proper actions are in place.

Amendments to the Judicial Council are obviously very important. It is our role to set rules by which the Judiciary must function in every sense of the word. The establishment of the Judicial Council and Judicial Appointments Commission are important developments, although we could have done without the various scandals that ensured they were established in the first instance.

The amendments are important to enable an independent complaints process to function. The substitution of another judge where a complaint is made against a judge is a good development. The real test will come when substantive complaints are made and adjudicated on. We have all had people contact us with particular complaints. I will not get into the rights and wrongs in that regard. The fact is, however, that people sometimes feel hard done by on the basis that we did not have a decent system in place in which they could see there was fairness. We are trying to put in place a fair system that works for all of us.

The Bill relates to the functioning of the courts overall. It would be remiss of me not to ask what is the status of the Government's review into judicial resources. The Minister stated earlier accepted that we obviously do not have a fit-for-purpose system in that we have the lowest number of judges per capitain Europe. That needs to be resolved. For all crimes, from minor offences up to very serious crimes, even when work is done by the Garda to be put in front of a court, it could take three or four years before we see anything happen in the Circuit Court. That is just not good enough. Very dangerous criminals will not be remanded in prison for a long time, which can create particular difficulties. We also know that justice should be swift. Beyond that, it create difficulties with regard to people who are planning to be witnesses. It allows time for others to organise impediments to those people following through on giving their testimonies. We need to ensure this matter is dealt with. We have massive backlogs and the sooner we deal with them, the better. We have had significant population growth and we need to do that piece of work in future. We use the term "workforce planning" with regard to all Departments and sectors at this point. We do not need to continue with these bottlenecks in judicial resources. We need to make sure we have enough throughput of judges and whatever other resources are required.

Part 6 amends the International Protection Act 2015. This is to correct a cross-reference and clarify provisions relating to revocation of a protection declaration, including clarifications in relation to Circuit Court jurisdiction and appeal to the High Court on a point of law. We are facing into a refugee crisis and it is difficult to envisage that it will not be an ongoing crisis. We are dealing with huge issues with climate change. There is instability across the world and a large number of places are, were or are still being ravaged by war. We need to make sure we have the law and the right system in place. Beyond that, we need to make sure that in our actions, we are providing people with the protections they require when they end up in this country seeking asylum from absolutely dreadful sets of circumstances. We need to do that because as we face into the very dangerous time ahead, we know certain elements will try to make hay, particularly with regard to issues that relate to refugees. We must not allow that to happen. This means providing a proper system. Beyond that, we must do a wider piece of work to protect the rest of society, some of which I discussed earlier.

We support this legislation. There will be considerable analysis and conversation on Committee Stage.

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