Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

“To add after the words ‘two reports’ the following paragraph:
‘; and
- calls on the Minister for Justice and Equality to implement the five recommendations set out by the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality in its Report on Penal Reform.’.”

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire arís. Ba mhaith liom an leasú atá cuirthe chun cinn ag Sinn Féin a mholadh ag an bpoínte seo. Tá mo chomhghleacaí le bheith anseo chun cuidiú leis sin. Cuirim fáilte roimh na cuairteoirí sa ghailearaí chomh maith céanna.
This motion during Private Members' business is the culmination of how the Houses of the Oireachtas can work at times. We often seem quite dysfunctional but now one sees the marriage of the parliamentarians working in committee, engaging with NGOs who have the grassroots knowledge of what happens on the ground, bringing that information to bear in a committee, and then bringing it to this House for discussion.
Having our amendment accepted is a rare treat for us on this side of the House and we welcome it. We were joking about it outside the Chamber, I had not realised it would be accepted. What our amendment tries to do is support the work of the committee. As outlined, the committee recommendations were agreed unanimously. We felt the amendments were good and we wanted to see them implemented. The final piece in this jigsaw will be the implementation, which will be up to the Minister of State and the senior line Minister.
What the committee has done and also the strategic review is to highlight that the penal policy in this country is not working, that it is outdated and ineffective. Our prison system is costly, outdated and inadequate. It is not fit for purpose. Our prisons are overcrowded and dysfunctional. They are costly places where we warehouse the poor, the mentally ill and the vulnerable. As a result Ireland's prisons have come in for much criticism from various directions. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the United Nations Human Rights Committee has a number of concerns, particularly regarding the ongoing lack of sanitary facilities. As has been said previously, the practice of slopping out must end immediately. It is degrading and inhumane. There is no place for it in Irish Society in 2014. The European committee also raised issues around the non-segregation of remand prisoners, the detention of emigrants in prisons, over-crowding and the consequent rising levels of inter-prisoner violence.
Sentencing and penal policy in Ireland have led to a situation where we have witnessed an almost 50% increase in the prison population in the past 15 to 20 years. We need to tackle this head on. Last year the Oireachtas Justice, Defence and Equality Committee published a report on penal reform. Our amendment is around the area of these specific recommendations which were first, to reduce prison numbers; second, to commute prison sentences of less than six months; third, to increase standard remission from one quarter to one third and introduce an incentivised remission scheme of up to one half; fourth, to introduce legislation providing for structured release, temporary release, parole and community return; and fifth, to address prison conditions and overcrowding and increase the use of open prisons. We tend to be combative at time but I would like to commend Senator Bacik for the work she did on that report. It is exemplary. I wish also to commend all of the members of that committee for the work they did.
The Sinn Féin Party and I fully endorse these recommendations and I am asking the Minister to implement them immediately. Sinn Féin welcomed the report of the Penal Policy Review Group in September of this year. In particular we welcome the engagement with the stakeholders across this area and many of them are present in the Visitors Gallery. We in Sinn Féin understand and recognise those with the expertise in the area.

These are the experts in the area, not us as politicians and legislators, and we must listen to them and take their counsel on these matters. We were glad to see the report recognised the futility of putting so many people in prison and said the unnecessary use of imprisonment must be severely reduced. The Government has still not fully implemented all aspects of the long-promised legislation whereby people would have to pay their fines instead of going to jail. We have been pushing for this for years now. We are heartened also to see in the report the recommendation that courts will not be able to make attachment orders to social welfare payments. The report also identified the link between crime and the failures of social policy, manifested in addiction and homelessness, something we have been bringing to the Government's attention for as long as we have been represented in these institutions.

However, our one criticism of the report is the failure to allow for a sentencing council. This is something we in Sinn Féin feel very strongly about. We would like to see a sentencing council based on the system in England and Wales, with clear sentencing guidelines given to the judiciary there, as it has engagement with the public about what are appropriate sentences for particular categories of criminal offences. On the basis of what is agreed, guidelines are passed to the judiciary. It is quite a flexible framework and judges still have a degree of discretion according to the circumstances of the individual case, although judges are expected to record the reasons for the decisions regarding the sentencing for an offence. I hope a similar system will be implemented here in Ireland. We are calling on the Minister of State to liaise with the senior Minister in the Department to implement fully the recommendations of the Oireachtas justice committee and to outline her plans for penal reform. We are putting our proposals forward.

I also concur with Senator Hayden on the issue around the realignment process that is happening in the community voluntary sector, particularly around the cohesion that happened with the partnership companies and the move towards the local community development committees, LCDCs, and the issues around social inclusion. We have raised our concerns about the democratic involvement of local communities on the boards of those companies. We still have those concerns. It is not too late for the Minister, Deputy Kelly, to reassess some of the issues around those companies and how they are doing their work.

Le focal scoir, táimid ag cur an leasú chun cinn mar mholadh ar an obair a rinne an comhchoiste. Sílimid go ndearna siad obair den scoth. Tá na moltaí ciallmhar. Tá sé thar am na leasuithe seo a dhéanamh. Aithníonn siad freisin an páirt riachtanach a ghlacann na comhlachtaí agus na daoine atá ag obair ar an talamh go moch agus go mall ach caithfimid freisin é a chur sa gcomhthéacs níos leithne ó thaobh na deacrachtaí sóisialta agus dul i ngleic leo sin chomh maith. Agus le sin, cuirim an leasú chun cinn.