Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

They are well known individuals and we are allowed to refer to court cases, especially this one, which failed the Irish people. The Law Reform Commission report referred to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and its legislation took into account that Act. The Bill we have brought forward also takes much of it into account. The benchmark is whether people in senior management positions in agencies and corporate bodies should go to jail if people die as a result of their management and mismanagement. I suggest, and many people agree, they should. The reason section 3, which contains the sanction of imprisonment, was removed in the UK was that the people in charge at the top level in England would not like to face such an offence in a court of law. While they have no problem with their corporate entity being fined, community service or adverse publicity, they have a problem with going to jail. We need to discuss it.

I am glad the Tánaiste is accepting the Bill. I am glad new politics works, in some instances. Now, unfortunately, the pressure is on the Department of Justice and Equality. In ten weeks' time it is going to Committee Stage under new politics. We will table amendments and I would love to sit down with the Tánaiste's officials and tease out the sections of the Bill she is not happy with. I ask the Tánaiste to reflect on the 1,600 victims of the hepatitis C scandal and those who died as a result. In her heart of hearts, the Tánaiste must agree that somebody should have gone to jail for it. This is what we are trying to prevent.

I want nobody to ever have to go to jail under the legislation. I want it to bring about a cultural change whereby it will not happen again, because people will know they could go to jail. As the Tánaiste is well aware, there are people who have no problem with adverse publicity orders against their organisations or by the time any court of law gets around to finding against their corporate entity or agency, they are well retired and pensioned off, and they do not care. They have to care. We have got to make them care. If they do not care about the individuals, we must make sure they care about the women who ended up getting sick because people in a State agency failed them and knew they were failing them, and knew people would die. This is the only benchmark.

Section 3 is a critical part of the Bill. It was removed in the UK, and I take into account the voluntary organisations. We can tease out all those elements. However, we must not forget that this is about prevention. Nobody ever gets a medal for preventing a war. The guys who go to war get all the medals and glory. We are trying to stop future hepatitis C scandals and future Stardust fires. From now on, our task and responsibility is to ensure that, when we are long gone from public service, the Bill will prevent those who should have acted from gross mismanagement to the point that they will go to jail if they fail people.