Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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234. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to reform the criminal laws to ensure that murderers serve a life sentence when they take a life; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2046/14]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The mandatory sentence for murder is life imprisonment, as provided by section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1990. A sentence of life imprisonment means that the prisoner is subject to that sentence for the rest of his or her life. Such a prisoner has no right to be released early at any stage. If granted temporary release, the prisoner remains subject to the life sentence and can be recalled to prison at any stage.

In the recent case of Vinter v. United Kingdom , the European Court of Human Rights held that for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights, there must be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review. Accordingly, it would not be possible to provide in our law that a person convicted of murder must be detained for the rest of his or her life without any prospect of release.