John O'Donoghue
Question:2 Mr. O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Justice if she will give details of her legislative programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8521/95]
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Legislative Programme.
The House will appreciate that my Department has a very extensive legislative programme and that it would not be practical by way of reply to a parliamentary question to deal in detail with every aspect of it.
I propose in the circumstances, a Cheann Comhairle, to concentrate in my reply on major legislative proposals to which I am attaching particular priority and on which work is well-advanced.
The House will be aware that the Criminal Law (Incest Proceedings) (No. 2) Bill, 1995 and the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Bill, 1995, are before it at present.
The Courts and Court Officers Bill, 1994 and the Refugee Bill, 1994, have remained before the House since the change of Government. I have been reviewing the provisions of both of those pieces of legislation and I expect to be in a position to proceed with my own proposals in these areas shortly.
Work is being advanced on the Fundraising for Charitable and Other Purposes Bill which is being prepared in the light of the Costello report on this matter.
The Government is determined to continue the process of extensive reform of the criminal law to ensure that the Garda and the courts have available to them effective and appropriate powers to deal with the modern realities of crime. I should mention that over the past decade or so many aspects of our criminal law have been very substantially updated and reformed and it would be entirely wrong for anyone to seek to create the impression that there is not already a very wide range of criminal law available. This is being used day in day out successfully in bringing the perpetrators of crime to justice.
But, of course, more remains to be done and I can assure the House that I intend to bring forward the necessary legislative proposals as soon as I possibly can.
I regard as a particular priority the finalisation of a Children Bill dealing with juvenile justice and I believe that the appointment of Deputy Currie as a Minister of State my Department as well as at the Departments of Health and Education will greatly facilitate this process. The new Bill will replace in its entirety the Children Act, 1908, and will represent the most comprehensive reform in the law in this area since the foundation of the State.
I am concerned at some of the present procedural arrangements for dealing with criminal cases and, in particular, the amount of Garda time which is spent unproductively in court. Preparation of a Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which will address this problem is at an advanced stage.
There are a number of outdated procedures and practices which come to light as requiring change. I have arranged for a list of these to be prepared on an on-going basis with a view to introducing a new Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill each year. I believe that this will represent a major and welcome departure from previous arrangements which could lead to a situation where desirable changes were delayed because of the lack of a suitable legislative vehicle to bring about those changes.
As promised in the Government policy agreement I have set up the National Bureau of Fraud Investigation. Their work will be underpinned by a new Fraud Offences Bill which will comprehensively amend and update the law on fraud offences with reference to recommendations made by the Law Reform Commission and the Government Advisory Committee on Fraud. Work is also well advanced on the preparation of a Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill.
Work is also proceeding on the preparation of a Bill dealing with Non-fatal Offences Against the Person. This will represent a major reform of the law dealing with non-fatal offences against the person in the light of a Law Reform Commission report. It will involve the repeal and replacement of the bulk of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861, and will generally codify the law relating to assault.
A criminal law Bill which, among other things, will place powers of arrest without warrant on a modern statutory basis is also well advanced.
The House will also be aware that I will be bringing comprehensive proposals to Government shortly on dealing with the drugs problem and, of course, the drafting of any legislative measures arising from those will be accorded priority. Of course, the Deputy will be aware that there are other commitments in the Programme for Government that relate to my Department, all of which are receiving attention.
It will be clear to the House that a major programme of criminal law reform is well advanced and I am sure that I can look forward to co-operation from all sides of the House in advancing that programme.
Will the Minister accept that it is totally unsatisfactory that, according to a response from her today, and from the Taoiseach previously no Bill will be published by the Department of Justice during this session to deal with escalating crime levels?
I do not accept what the Deputy has said. I have read out the list of legislation under preparation in my Department. There are four major pieces of legislation from the Department of Justice before the House which will be processed between now and the end of this parliamentary session. Deputies will also appreciate that any list of legislation is constantly updated to bring on line legislation that I or any other Minister feels should be put into the legislative programme. For example, when I took up office, I had no idea that I would have to bring in an amendment Act dealing with incest, but when a judge decided that people involved in treating victims of incest could not have any information about court cases, I immediately introduced legislation in this House for which I received praise in the other House from the Deputy's colleagues. That Bill will be dealt with in the Dáil. I will introduce any legislation that is required to fight crime, and it is wrong of the Deputy to give the impression that somehow just having a list of legislation is an effective way to fight crime. There is much legislation available now which the Garda are using day in and day out to fight criminals and put them behind bars.
Would the Minister accept that the Court and Court Officers Bill and the Refugee Bill were entirely the work of her predecessor and that the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners Bill was also largely the work of her predecessor? Will she further accept, since she brought up the Criminal Law (Incest) Bill, 1995, that that Bill was found in the Seanad to be wholly inadequate and she was obliged to replace substantial sections in the Bill with amendments contained in a Bill put forward by Fianna Fáil? Does the Minister not further accept that her obduracy and mean-spiritedness in not accepting a Bill on bail last night which was perfectly constitutional gives the impression that in the Minister's view, to use her own words, political expendiency is more important than dealing with the issue of crime?
In response to some of the points made by Deputy O'Donoghue, I made a very extensive speech on this Bill, and he knows full well why I was not able to accept it. It is true that the Court and Court Officers Bill and the Refugee Bill were both published by the last Government, but they were published in a very precipitate manner. One hundred and sixty amendments were tabled to the Refugee Bill, which was not introduced in the House in the normal way, which would have allowed Members to trawl through the Bill and make suggestions, but went straight into Committee Stage. We know the circumstances in which some of these Bills were dealt with in the rather fraught months of October and November before the demise of the last Government.
In our Programme for Government we gave a commitment to examine those Bills. A Bill that required 80 amendments from the Minister who introduced it and another 80 amendments tabled by the Opposition clearly needed to be reviewed when we came into office. I am completing a review of the terms of that Bill so that we will have a better Bill, and will shortly bring it to the Government. Deputy O'Donoghue is trying to make political capital out of the way in which I handled a Bill in the Seanad, but Members of the Seanad recognised my desire to ensure that no further victims of incest might find themselves in a position where they could not get the protection they needed from health agencies, etc., and I was willing, having introduced the Bill, to listen to the amendments being put forward not just by Fianna Fáil but by others because I would have introduced such amendments myself.
Perhaps Deputy O'Donoghue could demonstrate some of the cross-party constructive opposition that I saw in play in the Seanad by his own colleagues and members of the Progressive Democrats. He would do better to assist in the legislative programme than to try all the time to score petty political points because one of his Bills was not accepted by the Government.