Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his very comprehensive reply. I thank all of my colleagues who spoke, namely, Senators Hayden, O'Donovan, Conway, van Turnhout, O'Keeffe, Ó Clochartaigh, Mullins and Mooney. They made some very important points during the course of the debate, and in particular I thank Senator Hayden for seconding the motion and referring to issues on overcrowding and conditions in the women's prison and people still being imprisoned for the non-payment of fines. She also spoke about the critical issue of economic deprivation, or poverty, which is the real social and economic context in which we are examining penal reform.

I thank Senator van Turnhout in particular for raising the issue of children in prison. I also thank Senator Conway for his ongoing commitment to increasing the use of restorative justice, and Senators O'Donovan and Mooney for their support for the motion and their supportive comments on the joint committee's report, which had cross-party support and was unanimously adopted.

I thank the Minister of State in particular for setting out very practical ways in which the progressive recommendations in both reports are being advanced. I am very glad to hear that the Minister now has permission and approval from the Government to place the parole board on a statutory basis. This has been a long-standing issue for many of us. It is also very welcome to hear the Minister is in the process of establishing an implementation group in line with the recommendation of the strategic review group report. As I stated in my proposing speech, the implementation of the recommendations remains the critical issue. It is good to see the commonality of approach in both reports. There are some variations, and I was slightly disappointed that the strategic review group did not support our recommendation on increasing standard remission, but nonetheless the strategic review group report makes very progressive recommendations on remission. Both reports clearly seek to address the issues on prison conditions and overcrowding and explicitly want to make prison a sanction of last resort. This is the key goal lying across both reports.

Implementation is the key issue and I hope we will see in early course the establishment of the implementation group, which the Minister of State said the Minister is planning to establish. He stated she is considering the appointment of the independent chairperson. I am also very glad to hear she will refer the strategic review group report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence for further consideration.

We on the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality have a very good record, and I thank the Minister of State for acknowledging that, of achieving cross-party and consensual approaches to penal reform. We all want to acknowledge and record the significant progress that has been made on penal reform, and it is worth saying, as the Minister of State has pointed out, that the strategic review group reported 18 months after our own report was published in March 2013. In that period, both crime rates and rates of imprisonment had dropped. During that period also, we had seen enhanced co-operation and very structured co-operation between the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service. That was a significant factor in the changes in Finland that we looked at. The progressive penal policy that has been adopted there is based on stronger, co-operative links between the prison service and the probation service. That is very welcome.

I know the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, when she was launching the strategic review group report, said she did not want this to be another Whitaker, so-called, and that it would not simply be an excellent report which was never implemented. We do not want to see our report, the justice committee report, being another Whitaker, which is why we will continue to call on the Minister to implement its recommendations along with the 43 recommendations in the strategic review group report. Both we in this House and the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, represented here and those in NGOs watching this debate remotely will continue to press the Minister on implementation of the recommendations, a timeline for implementation and specific actions that will be identified.

I very much thank the Minister of State for beginning that process with us and setting out, on the record, various ways in which implementation will be progressed. I see this as an ongoing debate and I will be pressing the Minister of State and the Minister for Justice and Equality again on it. I thank again our colleagues from the NGOs, particularly the Irish Penal Reform Trust which is represented here. I thank other colleagues and the Minister of State for his very full response. I thank the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, in her absence.