Results 14,021-14,040 of 18,736 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: That is what they are called in Britain.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: In the course of the Criminal Justice Bill we provided for partly suspended sentences. The court in those circumstances can sentence a rapist, for example, to ten years' imprisonment, five of which would be served and five of which would be suspended on whatever conditions the court established, one of which might be that the rapist not go near the victim. That would be a straightforward...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I take the Deputy's point that maybe we should do both. I agree. It could be improved by having some form of appeal against it.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Deputy Howlin, working on the analogy with the ASBOs, referred to this as a civil order. It is an order consequent on a conviction which distinguishes it from an ASBO. It is like a criminal bankruptcy order.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: It would be better to see it that way. That is why I am not attracted to the Deputy's amendment calling it a civil order. In those circumstances it would be better to make it appealable as the condition of a suspended sentence is appealable to the Court of Criminal Appeal. It would be more logical to deal with it as an order consequential on a conviction and make it appealable.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes. This is not constitutionally infirm for vagueness.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: If we were not to proceed with section 24 I might be attracted to widening the Second Schedule to cover rape offences, which have nothing to do with gangland offences, so that it would comprehend them as well. Crimes are sometimes committed such as shooting at a neighbour or members of a family over a land dispute or rapes where the victims are in terror for a long time and even when the...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes, but I do not wish to include rape among gangland offences because I would be up to my ears in it.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I must be on one side of the fence or the other in this Schedule.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I will take that on board in taking a strategic view on the section.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: If any member of the Garda is enabled to accept notification by an offender, the offender will say, for example, that he or she told Sergeant Clohessy at the fair in Castletownbere last week where he or she was living. There must be formality and, therefore, an inspector or superintendent should preform this function. The inspector route was chosen because his or her knowledge would be more...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes. The Deputy has spent half his life speculating on the outcome of the forthcoming general election. However, if the House was to be graced again by Paddy Jer Sheehan, perhaps the Beara Peninsula would be dripping in gardaí.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Deputy Jim O'Keeffe is considering this issue from the perspective of Beara and south-west Cork. Sergeants do not necessarily have a geographical function whereas an inspector, in most cases, is responsible for an area. A sergeant may only be deployed in a station and he may not have a geographical responsibility.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I will examine that suggestion.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 86: In page 21, lines 20 and 21, to delete all words from and including "the" in line 20 down to and including "imprisonment," in line 21 and substitute the following: "the court shall, in addition to that sentence of imprisonment, consider whether it is appropriate to".

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The reason is that the only person who may ask the question is the arresting garda under the 1984 Act, which is bizarre.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: They are addressed.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Subject to some comments which I will make later, it has been the case since 1994 in England and Wales — I am not sure about Scotland — and since 1988 in Northern Ireland that inferences can be drawn from one's failure to mention certain facts, when one is being interviewed by the police, which one later relies on as part of one's defence. Does that trench from the right to silence? The...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The arresting garda had to put the questions.