Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

What I will do, although I have not discussed this with the Department, is give consideration to some short mechanism to put some provision in a miscellaneous provisions Bill that would deal with disregarding convictions that were imposed in these types of cases. In respect of the post office scandal in the UK, general legislation was introduced very promptly within a statutory scheme, which stated that for anyone convicted of these offences, those convictions would be disregarded. I will give some consideration as to whether that is possible. However, the Deputy will be aware that this is a complex issue. If we go back and start appraising and assessing many of the convictions from the fifties and sixties individually - to be frank, I am not aware of the number of convictions but for the type of convictions I am aware of - that would probably be problematic. I will see if there is any general statutory provision that could be introduced in a miscellaneous provisions Bill stating that for anyone convicted of an offence, that offence would be disregarded. However, that could be complicated.

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