James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No.1:

In page 5, line 16, after “enactments;” to insert the following: “to confer a power on the Minister for Justice to direct the conditional release of certain persons serving sentences of imprisonment or persons being detained in a place provided under section 2 of the Prisons Act 1970 and, for that purpose, to amend the Criminal Justice Act 1960 and other enactments; to amend and extend the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Act 1995; to amend and extend the Transfer of Execution of Sentences Act 2005; to make provision for matters to which the Parole Board shall have regard in deciding whether to make a parole order in respect of a parole applicant upon whom a sentence was imposed by a court or tribunal in a state, other than the State, the enforcement of which has been transferred to the State and, for that and other purposes, to amend the Parole Act 2019; to give further effect to Council Framework Decision 2009/829/JHA of 23 October 2009 on the application, between Member States of the European Union, of the principle of mutual recognition to decisions on supervision measures as an alternative to provisional detention; for that purpose to amend the Criminal Justice (Mutual Recognition of Decisions on Supervision Measures) Act 2020;”.

Several matters are being added to the Long Title. While I will speak to each area in more detail as the amendments arise, I will give a brief explanation now. Deputies will recall that the purpose of the Bill as introduced is to implement the EU framework decision 2008/909 on the mutual recognition of custodial sentences. This framework decision provides for the transfer of sentenced persons between EU member states and it supersedes the existing Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced persons for transfers within the European Union. Deputies will be aware that the convention is given effect by the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Act 1995 and the Transfer of Execution of Sentences Act 2005. Both of these Acts will remain in force and are particularly important as, after Brexit, transfers to and from the UK, which form the bulk of all transfers, take place under them.

On Second Stage I noted that serious legal issues had arisen with convention transfers which would also have affected Ireland's implementation of the framework decision. I stated that I intended to address these issues in this Bill for both the framework decision and the convention by introducing further amendments to both regimes. That is the purpose of the majority of the amendments before the House. The Long Title already covers the provisions on early and conditional release being introduced to the framework decision regime in Part 3 of the Bill. Therefore, the amendment to the Long Title is as a consequence of amendments to the 1995 Act to give effect to similar changes on early and conditional release for the convention regime and to align the 1995 Act with Part 3 of the Bill in terms of how the transfer process works, amendments to the 2005 Act to do the same for that Act and amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 1960. These provide for a new system of conditional release which will be applicable to transfers under all three Acts. Amendments to the Parole Act 2019 to make provision in relation to how life sentences are treated will similarly be applicable to all three Acts. Finally, amendments are being proposed in relation to the Criminal Justice (Mutual Recognition of Decisions on Supervision Measures) Act 2020. These address technical transposition issues with that Act which have been raised by the European Commission in the past 12 months.

For the information of Deputies as we discuss these amendments, different terminology is used in instruments in relation to the state's involved. Generally I will refer to the state where a person transfers from as the "sentencing" state and the state to which the person transfers as the "administrating" state. This is the convention terminology. The framework decision uses "issuing" state and "executing" state, in line with other EU instruments but these terms have the same meaning as "sentencing" and "administrating" state, respectively.

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