Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to add my voice to others in expressing concern at the failure to achieve a successful outcome at the Brexit negotiations yesterday. Anyone watching the events yesterday would have been dismayed to see what appeared to be an agreement on wording collapse with the symbolic approach of the British Government and the walking away of the DUP, which betrayed the very tenuous basis of the confidence and supply arrangement between it and the UK Government. I also join with others in urging the Government to hold firm, particularly given the very heartening words of support offered by Donald Tusk to Ireland as one of the EU 27 on Friday. They were very good to hear. We should all hope for and work towards a resolution, even if it is couched in language which is somewhat ambiguous, as was much of the language in the Good Friday Agreement, such as the term "regulatory alignment" which we saw yesterday. If that sort of text enables us to move forward it is all to the better.

I ask the Deputy Leader for a debate in the new year on penal reform. I want to revive the all-party Oireachtas penal reform group which was in place prior to the last election in which members of all parties and none could work together to develop policies on penal reform issues. Those of us on the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality prepared an excellent report on penal reform and I would like to continue to work on that. I would also like to let colleagues know that next Wednesday the penal reform group will have a first briefing in the AV Room in Leinster House with the Irish Penal Reform Trust and others. We will be speaking about the optional protocol to the convention against torture, OPCAT, which Ireland has not yet ratified. That should be the focus of any debate we have here in the Seanad in the new year. Why have we not yet ratified OPCAT? What improvements would it make? Essentially it would ensure independent regulation, monitoring and oversight of all places of detention in the country. It is vital that we move towards ratification of that protocol.I ask any colleagues with an interest to let me know and to attend the briefing next Wednesday.