Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To use the Minister's own logic against him, he argued that one cannot legislate for everything. I would imagine that the number of instances of crashed school buses by people who might have had a spent conviction is very small. Thankfully, we have only had a limited number of fatalities in crashed school buses. I would put the corollary to the Minister, which might be more common place. For example, people with a spent conviction might have had an alcohol problem in their early lives. They could have had alcohol rehabilitation and might have had a drink driving offence which then became a spent conviction. If they then applied for a job as a school bus driver - with the vetting procedures that are being suggested and if their spent convictions are all counted in - is there a possibility that they will not receive the vetting because in their spent convictions they had a charge of drunk driving? Therefore, they may be excluded from getting a job as a school bus driver. I contend that one could equally have a grey area on that side of the argument. That is why the Irish Human Rights Commission has argued that point. I agree with the Minister that there are grey areas, but I contend that the number of people who would be excluded because of the inclusion of spent convictions might increase more so than the incidence of accidents caused due to allowing one or two people through.

As the Minister said earlier, we cannot legislate for everything. There will be cases where things slip through the gaps and unforeseen things occur. I am afraid, however, that there is a contradiction between a spent conviction and this Bill, in that one is dragging up somebody's past. It may involve people who have made a genuine effort to rehabilitate themselves and get on with their lives. They are then told: "We've cleaned your slate and you've left that behind. You have repaid your debts and society is allowing you to move on." We have done the same with the Personal Insolvency Bill. The same principle applies in that regard where we draw a line in the sand so people can move on.

If this amendment is not accepted, however, it appears that we are saying: "We have buried the hatchet but we're going to put a flag where the hatchet is and go back and dig it up if we need it."