Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose to share my time with Senator Craughwell, if that is agreeable to the House. I will speak for eight minutes and he for two.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome this legislation. It is kind of a mixed-goods wagon in railway parlance. I accept the proposition that the Title looks a bit clunky but the Bills Office would insist the Title has to reflect the content of the Bill. When changes are being made to criminal law, civil law, retirement law and the courts' structure, it must be outlined in some identifiable way, otherwise no one would have any idea as to what the Bill was about, even at a cursory glance.

There are a couple of things about which I wish to ask the Minister of State. I welcome the appointment of an extra judge to the Court of Appeal. As for the amendments of the Immigration Act 2003, I note the fines in respect of documentation are being increased from €3,000 to €5,000 and from €1,500 to €2,500, as provided for in the 2003 Act. Will the Minister of State indicate how many prosecutions have taken place and how many fines have been imposed heretofore under any of those provisions in the last two or three years? I get the impression the law has fallen into desuetude. I say that advisedly because I have constantly heard feedback from people who are witnesses to the immigration process at immigration desks who say these fines are not being imposed on carriers. I note, from the Minister of State's speech, that a period of grace is provided for before this section is commenced. I really wonder whether the amount of the fine is the issue or whether the whole problem lies in determining who should and should not be responsible for policing people who get on planes to come to Ireland.

In that context, there is a general belief people flush their identify documents down various apertures in planes to conceal their identify when they are coming to this jurisdiction. The reality is probably that they conceal their documentation by handing it to another person who is in collusion with them, possibly a people-smuggler-type person. They obviously must have some type of documentation to get on board a plane and yet their documentation ceases to exist when they present themselves before an immigration officer. The problem in this regard is not that the documents are being destroyed or lost, but rather they are being concealed, either on the person or on someone else's person in those circumstances.

The second thing I wish to say concerns the Judicial Council Act 2019. The Delaney case was an instance in which the legislation on personal injuries guidelines survived by the skin of its teeth. Almost by an accident, something had happened since the original Act was brought into operation and the original guidelines were promulgated. There was a parenthetical reference to the guidelines in subsequent legislation, which the Supreme Court said was sufficient legislative authority for the guidelines to survive. Otherwise, there would have been a very embarrassing debacle. Nonetheless, I welcome the new provisions which will, in fact, insist these Houses of the Oireachtas validate and authorise the guidelines and that it is not simply a matter for organic activity by judges alone.

As regard to the remaining provisions, I have very little to say, except on the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act and the amendments being made to it. This is to increase the penalty from five years to seven years. The Minister of State has referred to the origin of this proposal. To be honest, in the context of the carrying of knifes, machetes and those kind of implements, it was really frightening to see, for anyone who watched "Crimecall" on television last night, the raid on a pub near Navan, County Meath, in which machetes were on full display on CCTV coverage.I do not believe that the people who are carrying them are going to study this Bill and decide they had better stop doing that because the sentence has gone up from five to seven years. That is a bit fanciful. It possibly does underline to the Judiciary, who are imposing, on indictment, punishments in these circumstances, that they do not have to regard the gravest crime as a five-year crime anymore. The gravest is now seven years. Therefore, medium to serious penalties could go up to five years without incurring the wrath of the Court of Appeal. However, I make the point that the use of knives and weapons such as machetes is on the increase. There is one better cure than increasing the sentence for it and that is much more engagement of policing. The number of gardaí engaged in front-line policing is, unfortunately, at the same level it was after I managed to increase the Garda strength from 12,000 to 14,000, almost 20 years ago. We have an expanding population. It is going to find its way into prison accommodation and into increased criminal activity on a per head basis. We have to face up to the fact we need more policing as well as more severe penalties.

On sentencing, and I do not want to climb on any bandwagons, there is a provision in place for appealing of unduly lenient sentences. That should be allowed to happen without political interference. I have no objection to people expressing outrage or their own opinions on particular outcomes of particular cases, but we have to remind ourselves that an independent and responsible Judiciary is something which we should not cow into being in a state of fright. There are proper safeguards which are part of our laws. The independence of the courts is very important. Regarding calls for the Department of Justice to be somehow censured, the Department of Justice is not at all responsible for the sentences imposed by the courts. Laying at the doorstep of the Department any dissatisfaction with any particular sentence is misplaced.