Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. It is overdue. We did not need to wait until the High Court told us last month that this needed to be done. I drafted a Bill that came before the House in March 2023, namely the Criminal Justice (Juvenile Offenders) Bill, Bill No. 30 of 2023, which sought to do the same thing in a different way and went slightly further.

The idea behind this Bill is simple. The notion that somebody can commit an offence as a child but be treated as an adult when it comes to being tried and sentenced for that offence is a nonsense. It completely ignores the fact we treat children differently in criminal law, and with good reason.We take a different attitude to people who are under age, when they have not reached the age of capacity to do certain things, when they have not reached the age of criminal responsibility in certain instances.

The Minister of State mentioned the Children Act. Quite apart from the Children Act, which requires courts to behave differently towards children, in the context of the criminal law we treat them differently and with good reason. There is a major problem with the way the law is now and not just because of the incongruity of treating a child or a person who is accused of a crime differently because they are older. Worse than that, an offence may be committed when a child is 17 and that child may be suspected by the Garda. While I do not for a moment suggest that the Garda do so, in our law there is an incentive for it to delay arresting and prosecuting that child until he or she ages out. There is a greater tariff of sentence available for all offences, including murder, in respect of that person once they are over 18 than would be the case if they were 17 when the offence was committed. That is wrong, it is inconsistent and it should not be the case.

It is not just murder that this applies to. The Children Act has provisions that do not apply to murder and other offences. As a general rule, we should be treating somebody in relation to an offence they may or may not have committed. When they are being tried for that offence, they should be treated as if they were at the age they were when the offence was committed. That makes sense. Murder is perhaps the offence in respect of which there was the most stark contrast because of the mandatory life sentence.

In this jurisdiction, we have life sentences for murder for good reason. I am generally not in favour of mandatory minimum sentences and would much rather a judge would have the discretion, within the tariff on the range set down by the Oireachtas, to make the decision as to where the particular offence and, perhaps most importantly, the offender fall in the context of the scheme of whatever sentences are available. When it comes to murder, we have removed that discretion from the courts because it is literally the most serious offence we can think of in this jurisdiction.

It is important to remember that a life sentence in Ireland is a life sentence. It is not like our neighbouring jurisdiction where it is defined as, I think, being 13 to 15 years or maybe 13 to 17 years. It is not a time-defined matter. That, in itself, is a problem the Department is wrestling with. At the moment, someone sentenced to life imprisonment in Ireland is under sentence for life. It does not mean they are spending their life behind bars but even when they are released, they are on licence. At any point a decision can be made to return the person to jail for whatever stated misconduct. The rules on that are fairly open to abuse.

I can think of some very high-profile people who have been convicted of murder and who spent inordinately longer behind bars in prison than other people may have done for less high-profile murders simply because the person with responsibility for making the decision about the release is the Minister for Justice and it has been politically untenable to release some people because of the nature of murders they committed. That may be a discussion for another day. It is worth marking the fact that life sentences reflect the seriousness with which the Oireachtas and society view the offence of murder. A life sentence is a real sentence; it is a sentence for life.

I will come to this further on Committee Stage. The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill only deals with murder; it does not deal with treason. Perhaps the Minister of State might outline why that is the case. Section 2 of the 1990 Act addresses sentences for murder and treason. I know there is a diminishing trade in treason in this jurisdiction. I do not know when we last had a treason prosecution here and I hope we do not have one a long time. I hope even more that no child would be involved in treasonous activity. However, the 1990 Act deals with both offences.

The Bill that I drafted in 2023 removed the mandatory life sentence in respect of both offences. Currently, a person convicted of treason in Ireland gets a mandatory life sentence and a person convicted of murder gets a mandatory life sentence, and the same is true for children. When the Bill before the House is passed, there will not be a mandatory life sentence for a child for murder but there will be a mandatory life sentence for a child for treason. I do not understand why that was left out.

I welcome the Bill. It is very important. I particularly welcome the retrospective aspect of it, which is very unusual in Irish legislation. The provision in section 4 to make this retrospectively active is exceptional but also important because it deals with people who may already have committed an offence or are currently before a court. I welcome that element of it. I do not propose to use the entirety of my time. Suffice to say that on behalf of Fine Gael, I welcome the Bill. I welcome it as somebody who has been pursuing this subject for more than 18 months. I look forward to the Minister of State's response to some of the issues I have raised.