Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I thank the Minister and his staff. I am particularly grateful that the Minister will allow the Bill to return to the Dáil, thereby allowing Members to table amendments that could be accepted by the Minister, which he duly did in some cases. This is particularly welcome as it was not expected. I presumed we would be told we could not have amendments accepted because the Bill would not go back to the Dáil. I am pleased this is not the case.

I would like to reiterate some of the points I made with regard to anti-social behaviour orders. I am in favour of the orders but it is important that we review the legislation and that within a couple of years we would consider introducing an anti-social behaviour Bill, such as that introduced in Scotland in 2004. If we do this we will consult communities. The Minister spoke about the NGOs and the "pointy heads", on which I will not comment. The Law Reform Commission does great work but often bases its papers on certain groups. The usual groups consulted make submissions while the views of communities are not necessarily heard. It is important to consult communities if this legislation is to be reviewed. People in communities have to deal with anti-social behaviour. It is not an us versus them situation. They want the young people in their areas to succeed and do not want them to be involved in crime. They want it to be nipped in the bud. People often say that if one does something about the young child who is lighting fires in the local park, one might prevent him or her from going on to commit worse crime. There is a positive aspect to anti-social behaviour orders because they do not necessarily criminalise people. Hopefully they would stop people from getting involved in criminal behaviour.

Local authorities need to be given a more important role. They should have been able to get anti-social behaviour orders and we need to introduce this in the future. There will be teething problems. The Scottish legislation introduced interim ASBOs and we may need to examine that here. One of the difficulties found by the reviews was that it took a long time, numerous court days, to get an anti-social behaviour order. Interim ASBOs would be one way to address that. We need statistics on anti-social behaviour similar to those the Minister is building up on crime. We will need statistics on the ASBOs made, the outcome and so on. Politicians and people such as the Ombudsman for Children can use that kind of information for review. People may revise their views on how they work as a result.

The Labour Party raised points with which the Minister was sympathetic. In the other House questions were asked about how to facilitate community fireworks and there is an issue there. We must address the fact that people buy fireworks in the North and use them here illegally. We must bring in a workable law on this. Yesterday the Minister mentioned reopening cases where a person is acquitted of serious crime. I hope the Minister finds a way of dealing with that issue. I do not agree with the qualification in the legislation on the age of culpability for children. The Minister should have stuck with what his Government introduced initially. Perhaps the child protection committee could review that. It is an unnecessary move and the Minister should reconsider it.