Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to speak briefly on the principle of the amendments. We covered this in some detail on Second Stage, but I appreciate the opportunity to raise this matter again. I am grateful to the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the Mercy Law Resource Centre, which made submissions to us on the issue calling for more liberal provisions concerning the sentences that would be covered. The Minister of State's response reflects what was said at second stage about the vast majority of sentences being covered. We all very much welcome the increase to 12 months, given that the Law Reform Commission recommended a much more conservative sentence length of six months.

I am pleased to see in the Government schedule that the waiting period will be reduced. That answers the concerns many of us had. In particular, where somebody is sentenced to six months or less it will go down from five to four years, and in the case of 12 months or less it will go down from six to five years. That is of practical import to people. We have to bear in mind that the vast bulk of sentences are short, which in itself says something about our penal system that is worthy of debate on another day.