Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, to the House. It is a big day for me. I am truly delighted to welcome the Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018 back to the Seanad. It is a real privilege and an honour to see the Bill, hopefully, pass its Report and Final Stages in the House tonight, especially in the likelihood that it will shortly be taken up by our colleagues in the Dáil.

Much time has passed since November 2019 when the Seanad was last debated this Bill. It was a different Seanad that passed it through Committee Stage and we have had fresh elections, a new Government, and a very different Oireachtas in that time. The fact that the Bill has reached this point despite those changes speaks to its universality and power. It is not every day that a Private Members' Bill from an Opposition Senator makes it through the House. I thank all those who played a role in getting this crucial and life-changing legislation to this advanced Stage. This will be my last time formally speaking on the Bill, so I would be grateful for some latitude in order that I can mention everyone involved.

I first want to thank every person with direct experience of dealing with historic convictions who has contacted me in recent years, and since I was first elected in 2016, about the impact that it has had on their lives, their prospects and their opportunities. People have been honest, genuine and generous in sharing a sometimes difficult part of their past with me, in the hope of seeing change in their lived experiences, State policy and in the law. Every provision of this Bill is rooted in the sum total of all of those impossibly diverse personal experiences, which experiences made clear to me where our current laws are inadequate and where changes needed to be made. This Bill is for all of you and it has been forged from your lived experiences and desire to see change, for which I am forever grateful.

I started working not on this Bill, but the spent convictions Bill, when I worked in addiction services and we did not have spent convictions legislation. As someone who worked in addiction services trying to promote progress, abstinence or recovery and to encourage people to engage in education or the workforce I came to realise pretty quickly that we can try all we want to support people to progress in their lives, but if the law and society does not allow them to take up opportunities then each and every stage of that work is, for them, pointless. They use up a lot of energy trying to succeed only to be met with massive barriers.I always revert to the many letters I have received throughout my life, first from my friends in prison, then my family in prison, now people who write to me, as a legislator, from prison, and people who have been out of prison for a long time. The common theme is always, "When I get out, I am going to get a job" or "I never want to end up in this situation again." There are always aspirations and feelings about change. Listening to the authorities in the prison system, prisoners believe that if they just do certain key things, they will be able to rehabilitate their lives and become active members of society. We tell them that but when they leave prison, they are perpetually punished. The punishment never ends on leaving prison because it continues and follows them.

When I first became involved in politics as a legislator, people heralded me as a role model or somebody to look up to, or somebody who could help others find their way through the education system. However, one of the most depressing things I found at that time was that when the people I cared about most asked me about education, studying social work or becoming a midwife, or said they wanted to do what they had really wanted to do when growing up but did not do because they were too wild or young or made mistakes, I could not be such a role model if the structures, society, employers and education system did not allow people like me enter that space. I was very lucky that my convictions were before I was 18. Had they not been, I would not be here today to outline my lived experience. People like me would not be able to work in the Civil Service, study social work or medicine, or even volunteer. Now, for a person to volunteering with his or her child’s local football club, an issue arises. Men and women contact me saying how embarrassed they are to tell their local club what might have come up years into their past. It does not seem as if we have a forgiving society. We do not acknowledge to prisoners that when the judicial system punishes them and they serve their time, their punishment does not end there and it continues. We cannot have progress if we keep pinning someone to his or her past. None of us is the sum total of what we did in the past or experienced. We cannot have recovery and integration without the space for people to be able to find their purpose.

If we consider the people who end up in the prison system or with convictions, there is a significant class element. There are low levels of educational attainment within the community and there is a high level of poverty, including consistent poverty, but we cannot address poverty for those who are at most risk of it if, when they decide to enter the workforce to address it, they are excluded because of convictions. It is a wheel that continues to turn time and again. We all need purpose, to feel useful, to feel valued and to be active members of society. Why would there be legislation and policy that refuses citizenship at that level? We are not the sum of our mistakes, we are not the number of months we spend in prison, we are not the trauma we experience, and we are not the conviction on the page.

I thank Mr. Sebastian McAteer in my office for his advocacy and work on the Bill. I thank the Irish Penal Reform Trust and its director, Ms Fíona Ní Chinnéide, and all the trust's staff and researchers for providing us with the benefit of their long history of policy expertise in this area, for launching the Bill with my office and for their ongoing support in the years that followed.

I thank my colleagues in the Civil Engagement Group, both current and former Senators, for co-sponsoring the Bill with me in 2018 and for their ever-helpful assistance and advice in progressing it through the Seanad. I am grateful to all my colleagues in the previous Seanad and the current one for their near-unanimous support and encouragement. I thank the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, including Ms Sinead Dullaghan, barrister at law, and her colleagues, for drafting the legislation and for their work on subsequent amendments on Committee Stage.

I thank the various Ministers, advisers and departmental staff who have worked on this Bill with me over the three years, including Minister without Portfolio, Deputy Helen McEntee, and former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charles Flanagan, for the support and the momentum they provided to make these changes to our law. I also thank the members of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality for engaging with stakeholders during an extremely worthwhile session in July 2019 on spent convictions reform more broadly and for an excellent report and set of recommendations on how to strengthen the proposed changes to our law.

I am grateful to the then Minister for Justice for meeting me to discuss the Bill in October and to her Department for holding public consultation in November and for meeting me again earlier this year to discuss its results. I am delighted that we are now assembled here this evening to pass the Bill with the support of the Government during Government time. I am grateful to the Minister and Leader for facilitating this. It is the kind of cross-party, cross-Chamber law-making that I am always proud to be a part of and that demonstrates the role of the Seanad as a source of necessary legislative reform.

Taken together and passed into law, I truly believe the provisions of the Bill could revolutionise criminal justice and penal policy in this area. I am aware that considerable work has been done in the Department since I introduced the Bill, particularly since the public consultation closed before Christmas. I am grateful to Deputy McEntee and her officials for the presentation I was given on the shape of the proposals she intends to see passed to law. While I welcome their overall thrust, I am concerned that certain amendments to the legislation that the Government may make will unfortunately limit and narrow the scope of what I have set out to achieve. However, there was considerable unanimity among the various stakeholders in the consultation process, to which, of course, I contributed.

I implore the Minister of State to consider any amendments with caution and to ensure the recommendations of the major stakeholders are reflected in the process as progress is made. The Oireachtas may not see fit to return to this area for many years and, therefore, the shape of what we agree over the coming months could have long-lasting consequences. None of us wants to return in another five years to amend an overly conservative Act, as we are currently doing, to fix what could and should have been foreseen. This Bill, in its current constitution, represents real and tangible reform in this area. I urge the Minister of State and her officials to take an holistic approach in the Dáil and ensure the provisions of this legislation are fair and generous and offer tangible support to former offenders to reintegrate into society after periods of offending. I urge her to keep the legislation as close to its current form as possible. I thank her for her support. I hope to continue to support my colleagues in the Dáil and officials in the Department as we see the Bill progress through the Dáil. I commend the Bill to the House.