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

This Bill will amend the Criminal Justice Act 1990 to disapply both the mandatory life sentence for murder and the minimum custodial period for capital murder for those who were under 18 at the time of the offence. We support legal certainty, which is absolutely necessary as regards sentencing, especially in cases involving the circumstances such as the case which led to this, where a gangland murder took place. There are wider issues as regards the coercion of children into criminal activity. I will deal with that later in my speech.

There are a number of concerning developments within the justice system that I would like to deal with. The first I would like to raise relates to an RTÉ investigation. According to Conn Corrigan, writing on the RTÉ website, GSOC has indicated that certain criminal convictions recorded over recent years in a District Court could be invalid. Given the potential scale of the issue, this is obviously a major concern. GSOC's investigation into the matter corroborated a complaint made by a whistleblower, with the substance of the issue relating to statutory declarations in court summonses. Such declarations are, of course, part and parcel of everyday court activities in civil and criminal cases. GSOC found that a specific station was using a replica of a peace commissioner's signature stamp when making these declarations-----

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