Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

The Minister has accepted the principle of the amendment and obviously the cost comes into play. I am not suggesting we have a monopoly of wisdom in this regard but some register of sentencing should be kept. This is done in other jurisdictions and I hope a number of researchers would be employed to refer to a register of sentencing. What the amendment suggests is somewhat rigid but I am open to being convinced that it can be done in another way. It would certainly be a very useful exercise.