Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody across the House who has shown his or her support for the Bill. It means a lot to me to hear such encouraging words from every party and none in the House. It means more to me because legislation such as this has impacted on my life and the lives of those with whom I have worked and in my community for a very long time. During the week I was in the gym where a woman, a youth worker in Ballyfermot, said to me she had been talking to a young lad who was in my class. I teach in Maynooth on Mondays. She said he was going to drop out of the course but had decided to stay because he had met someone there who was like him. He was talking about me. That got me thinking about what other professions would be like if individuals were able to sit in front of others and where a person could look at another and say he or she would stay engaged because that person was like him or her.

I then thought about the value people with convictions would bring to such places as the Probation Service, An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice and Equality. Imagine having that expertise in the room, a person who has lived such a life and what he or she could bring to the table. As someone who was on probation and sat in front of a probation officer in my teens, sometimes the people in question are not given a chance. They could be very good at the job. The first thing they think is that the other person does not understand them. They have never experienced what they have experienced. They do not get it. Therefore, they shut them off and do not really give them a chance to engage, even though they could be their way out. Sometimes, however, someone is not prepared to listen if he or she does not sound or look like us as he or she may not have had the same experiences. Legislation such as this which will allow us to widen participation in the workforce can only ever be good for society. What has been mentioned a few times is protecting the public, but we can only ever really protect it by allowing rehabilitation and reintegration. Being fair to the individual is intertwined and interlinked with protecting the public. They cannot be seen as separate. In supporting the individual, one builds stronger democracies and communities and a more trustworthy public.

The Bill is not about letting people off easily but about reducing criminality. It is about people who are not reoffending. To avail of it, one must not be offending. If one is continuing to offend, one will have three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten offences, in other words, countless convictions on one's record. Therefore, the Bill is about people who are trying to reintegrate.

When I was listening to the piece about volunteering, it occurred to me that years ago on summer projects in communities with one's child someone did not have to be Garda vetted. Now someone has to be. Someone does not have responsibility for other children on a summer project, but, obviously, there are new policies in place such that if someone is going on a trip, even if it is only a day trip, all of the adults have to be Garda vetted. Right now someone can be excluded, even though he or she has no responsibility for other children. One is not there as a helper or a volunteer but with one's own child. However, one cannot have that right to family life with one's children because of an old conviction.

This legislation is crucial. It is life-changing, not only for individuals but also for society. I look forward to working with the Minister and his Department and everybody within the House to develop the Bill develop in a way that it will be accessible for individuals and also reasonable for everybody in this House. The Bill was drafted based on everything that had been said in each item of legislation on spent convictions. Every conversation that had taken place in the Chamber was carefully analysed by my office to see what people had seen as wrong with the original legislation, not just the 2016 legislation but also the two items of legislation tabled before it. There is not much in the Bill that has not been spoken about in the past ten years within the Houses. I did not pull anything out of the air in terms of its policy intentions.

I thank everyone for his or her support and allowing us to proceed beyond Second Stage in order that we can engage in critical analysis of the legislation. To that end, I look forward to working with the Minister and his Department.