Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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121. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 349 of 28 May 2024, if she has delegated her powers under the Criminal Justice (Temporary Release of Prisoners Act 2003) to the IPS (details supplied); and if so, if she will provide this Deputy with a copy of such delegation duly authorised. [27357/24]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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122. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 349 of 28 May 2024, if she has delegated her powers under the Criminal Justice (Temporary Release of Prisoners Act 2003), to the IPS (details supplied); and if so, if a copy of such delegation duly authorised will be provided to this Deputy. [27369/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 121 and 122 together.

The Irish Prison Service is currently a non-statutory executive office of my Department and officials exercise the authority of the Minister for Justice under the Carltona principle.

As the Deputy may be aware, a non-statutory interim Parole Board was put in place in 2001, the main function of which was to advise the Minister of the day on the administration of long term prison sentences. That board reviewed cases of prisoners sentenced to determinate sentences of eight years or more but less than 14 years when the prisoner has served half of the sentence, and the cases of prisoners sentenced to 14 years or more or life sentences after 7 years have been served of the sentence.

That non statutory procedure was replaced when the Parole Board was established as a statutory body under the Parole Act 2019 on 31 July 2021. Under this legislation, the Parole Board makes its decisions to grant or refuse parole independently from the Minister for Justice. Under the new law, a person must have served at least 12 years of their life sentence before the Board can grant or refuse a parole application and, importantly, victims have a formal right to make submissions to the Parole Board in relation to the offender’s application for parole. As part of the parole process, both victims and parole applicants may have access to legal representation where the relevant parties express a desire for this.

Operational procedures are also in place providing that decisions in respect of temporary release not covered by the Parole Board are made at different levels depending on the circumstances. Grants of temporary release to those serving life sentences and sentences in excess of 8 years, among other categories of prisoner, are currently submitted to the Minister. These processes are kept under ongoing review.