Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality. She is always welcome, particularly when she is commencing Bills, for which I thank her. It is good to see this Bill starting life in the Seanad. Like others, I am happy to express the support of the Labour Party for the Bill which is technical in nature to address the High Court judgment of April 2016 of Mr. Justice Moriarty. It should be noted that in his judgment he referred to the relatively chequered history of section 99, the fact that it had been amended twice and the subject of criticism from a number of courts at different levels, particularly by the late Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman who in 2015 spoke about the section as having given rise to innumerable practical difficulties and problems and being in need of urgent and comprehensive review. The difficulties with the provision had been signalled. There had been litigation prior to the six joint cases that were the subject of the judgment of Mr. Justice Moriarty. In one of these cases Mr. Justice Hogan, in the High Court in 2014, had given a very clear rationale, on which Mr. Justice Moriarty's judgment was based in striking down the relevant provisions of section 99.

As the Minister said, the Bill seeks to address the core issue, namely, discrimination. According Mr. Justice Hogan and Mr. Justice Moriarty, what was wrong with section 99 was that it offended the principle of equal treatment of similarly situated persons within the criminal justice system. Mr. Justice Hogan made the point that, as far as the rights of appeal were concerned, the provision allowed for significantly different treatment of otherwise similarly situated accused persons. It seemed to preclude a right of appeal for those in respect of whom a suspended sentence was to be revoked. The Minister described this as a procedural difficulty identified by the High Court, but, to be fair, it is more than that. It was a very fundamental constitutional difficulty that the court had identified, that is, the effect of section 99. As the Minister said, the constitutional breach identified by the High Court is being dealt with in the Bill by allowing the person concerned to appeal the conviction or sentence in the triggering of the second offence before he or she returns to the revocation court to have the matter of the suspended sentence dealt with. That is very welcome.

In the broader context, I welcome any provision that make the operation of suspended sentences more effective and workable. The Minister will be well aware of the report of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality on penal reform which predated the strategic review report of the expert group, to which my colleagues have referred. In our 2013 report, produced under the chairpersonship of the Minister of State, Deputy David Stanton, we recommended that significant penal reforms be adopted by the Government, in particular a decarceration strategy with an intention of reducing the prison population by one third over ten years. We were cognisant of the fact that we had heard from numerous experts, organisations and statutory bodies, including those with first-hand experience of working with prisoners and ex-prisoners every day. The consensus that emerged in the hearings was that prison was not working to prevent reoffending, protect victims of crime or keep society safe. It also emerged that prison overcrowding had had a pernicious effect on the conditions in which inmates were living and any effort to try to rehabilitate them. We were particularly concerned about end-of-sentence strategies and the fact that prisoners were being released in an unstructured way with a lack of real sentence management. Our recommendations sought to take on board what had been done in Finland, where effective measures had been adopted through a change in political decision-making. It had adopted a strategy that had led to reduced prisoner numbers, from about 4,000 in 2005 to 3,000 in 2013, in a jurisdiction with similar numbers to those in Ireland. We believed a similar policy should be adopted here. We spoke about the need to increase the use of community-based sanctions, increasing standard remission from one quarter to one third and introducing incentivised remission schemes and legislation for structured release, temporary release, parole and community return.

We are very heartened to hear about some of the initiatives being taken by the Irish Prison Service, including on community return. They have shown strong measures of success in addressing and reducing recidivism rates. These measures are welcome and the Irish Prison Service was very receptive to some of the recommendations we had made. It was among the bodies that had given evidence to us.

Overall, we set out recommendations that we should seek to achieve a penal policy which would see prison as genuinely a sanction of last resort and use alternative means of sanction and sentence for those convicted of minor non-violent offences. That was the overarching theme of the report. Crime rates and prison numbers have fallen, which is very welcome. The figures show that there are just over 4,190 people in prison today, including those in custody awaiting sentencing and those on remand. We still need to ask ourselves, however, whether all of these people need to be in prison and whether their imprisonment is serving any purpose, particularly where they are serving short sentences for minor non-violent offences. We should consider whether, in the case of such minor offences, the interests of victims and society at large might be better served by focusing on rehabilitation efforts in the community rather than simply locking people up. Suspended sentences have an important role to play in a more enlightened and progressive penal policy, as we discussed at the committee. I understand the Department and the Irish Prison Service are embracing that view. I look forward to the Bill being part of a package of measures to try to achieve a more enlightened policy.