Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Jim O'Callaghan on his success in bringing this Bill through the Oireachtas. As a fellow member of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, where we have had significant engagement on this issue, I acknowledge that Deputy O'Callaghan was very keen to progress the legislation. I was sorry to miss the debate last week on Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell's Private Members' Bill, but I listened with great interest to her podcast on the subject. The points she has made today are important and relevant, and I hope there is some engagement with them on Committee Stage in respect of Part 3 of the Bill. I am not sure if such engagement is possible, but I hope it is.

This important Bill is to be welcomed, notwithstanding the concerns some Members have with parts of it. During the term of the last Seanad, the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, was Chairman of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, which completed a significant body of work on the issue of restorative justice, including a report with recommendations and references to the models in south Dublin and north Tipperary which were working well. In addition, we had an important engagement on community courts and what they had achieved in New York city, particularly in the area of Times Square. Of course, when people commit a crime, they absolutely must be punished for it, and that punishment must be fair and proportionate. That is what society expects. However, the time inevitably comes when people are released back into society, and we have a responsibility to ensure that they are properly rehabilitated. Advocates of restorative justice practices, community courts and similar measures emphasise the importance of engaging with perpetrators to help them achieve an understanding of what they have cost their victims. I appreciate that it is a totally different situation where murder and other very serious crimes are concerned. However, in the case of less serious crime, we should always have an open mind and an eye to the future when people are trying to re-enter society. We have a responsibility to ensure that those people, once they have served their sentence, are properly rehabilitated, can gain an understanding of the damage they did to their victims and, most important, are no longer any danger to society.

The Minister of State is well equipped to bring this legislation through the Houses because of the work he did in the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality in the previous Oireachtas term. It was a full five-year term in which we had an extensive engagement on the issue of alternative sentencing. I hope we have an opportunity to bring as many people as possible on board on Committee Stage.