I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this Bill. Considering that the Minister has seen fit to come before the House to introduce a criminal law Bill, I am surprised she has not taken the opportunity to address the serious fears that occupy people's minds at present. I am also disappointed she has not taken the opportunity to present proposals which would practically and realistically address the problem of curbing serious crime. While no one will object to the repeal of certain sections of the Whipping Act or amendment of the Slave Trade Act, a requirement which I am sure was requested by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, and considered by him to be a grave necessity, the time of this House would be better spent introducing measures which would allow women to walk the streets at night or during the day without fear, or elderly people to sleep soundly in their beds before the light of dawn announces they have survived another night. Worthy though these measures may be and as necessary as it is to differentiate between felonies and misdemeanours, the Minister has not yet realised the despair and anguish outside the confines of this House.
Has the Minister read the reports of senior gardaí which must have been piling up on her desk during the past year? Does she read the newspapers and absorb the now almost daily reports of murder and unlawful killings which litter the media headlines? I realise the Minister cannot prevent every murder or catch the culprits after their foul deeds, but she is the Minister for Justice, charged with responsibility for ensuring a climate exists that will indicate to those who consider committing severe crimes against the person that their crime will be speedily detected and the full rigours of the law will apply to those convicted. That is not the case at present. While I congratulate the gardaí on their swift and effective solution of many of the recent murders, I question if they have all the necessary resources for tackling the gangland killings and the murder for hire contractors who seem to be escaping the net. Is the Minister sending out our Garda force not fully equipped in manpower, equipment or financial resources to cover overtime? This is important if we are to address our major crime problem.
If the penny-pinching of the Minister for Social Welfare in his treatment of students is any guideline to the approach of the Government to the funding of necessary works and schemes, then the Minister for Justice may as well throw in the towel at this stage, as her record of alerting her Cabinet colleagues to her financial requirements and enlisting their support is dismal.
I question whether the Minister has done well by the gardaí who served her, the Department and this State since she took over her present responsibilities. I can think of a great many improvements in legislation, conditions and the provision of resources which would improve the general public's perception of the state of law and order in this State today. To put it in modern parlance, the Minister should get a life and wake up to the reality that this country is falling apart around her and the rest of her Cabinet colleagues. The paltry proposals before us today could best be described as rearranging the deckchairs on the Titantic as this inept Government of fiddlers plays “Abide With Me” softly in the background, as the ship of State slips slowly under the waves.
The Bill before us needs some backbone, some positive proposals which will reassure our people that there is a Legislature aware of their needs and the crises which is quietly rocking this country and that it is willing and able to do something about it. Nothing they have seen from this Administration in the area of law and order would give them confidence. There have not been any far-sighted measures, dynamic action, cohesive plan or clear explanations of those operations approved by the Government which went sadly wrong. This Government is made up of men and women in mohair suits.
One far-reaching proposal I commend to the Minister is the greater use of DNA testing and the creation of a bank of files which would quickly and reliably assist in the detection of major crimes against the person. I query whether the Minister can realistically take on board such a proposal as she would need all her clout at Cabinet to see it past her colleagues who would regard it as an erosion of civil liberties. I will return to that aspect of the proposal shortly but first I will outline some of the benefits of DNA testing. Having made the recent breakthrough of introducing the use of tape recorders for the taking of depositions in legal matters, will the Minister go for broke and, in one daring measure, reduce to minuscule proportions the time it takes to detect serious violent crime and dramatically increase the detection rate, thereby reducing the incidence of repeat crime?
The use of DNA technology here is in its infancy but I submit that the procedure holds the key to keeping the serious crime wave in check in the foreseeable future. I have no doubt that there would be widespread and overwhelming support for it from the people in the street as they are the ones who have to live with the constant threat of violent crime, and have lived in the climate of fear which has pervaded this country for several years and which is regularly reinforced by the content of horrific news bulletins. They have no time for the niceties of civil liberties or the splitting of hairs on the right to remain silent. All they want is that murderers, rapists and other violent people be taken out of circulation at the earliest possible moment and kept there until it is safe to let them back on the streets. That can be done more readily by the extensive use of DNA profiling and I call on the Minister to initiate such a programme forthwith. This relatively new science has found favour in many jurisdictions already, serving them well, and does not seem to have adversely affected their civil liberties to an appreciable extent. For instance, in Northern Ireland powers were extended 12 months ago to allow the RUC greater use of DNA profiling. I have not heard adverse reports on this new measure from that source. That move brought Northern Ireland into line with the British regime which has been making use of this detection tool for some time. The serial killer or rapist may be tracked very easily if this relatively simple method is made available to the Garda Síochána. There is a recorded case in the UK of a rapist who has struck several times and had been terrorising the neighbourhood. The police sought and received the co-operation of 150 men on a housing estate who supplied saliva samples for matching with semen samples taken from the rapist's victims and were able quickly to identify and apprehend the offender, thereby ending his reign of terror. Can we justify not using this resource to the fullest? Will the public forgive us if we do not move decisively immediately?
Reports were carried in last Sunday's newspapers that we did not have the available expertise to carry out the large number of tests that were necessary in apprehending the killer of the late Imelda Riney and that we had to draft in help from the RUC to make reasonable progress. Will the Minister tell us if this is true and why it should be so? Do we not have enough staff? Are we once more dependent on help from outside the jurisdiction to do what we should be capable of doing ourselves? Are our citizens not worthy of the fullest protection, the best service our police force can offer in the light of the technology and expertise available today? Will the Minister explain why we are lagging behind in this area? Is it due to a shortage of money, a lack of will or co-operation on the part of the Minister or her Cabinet colleagues which denies us this invaluable aid?
I believe that DNA testing of huge numbers of people to exclude them from police inquiries or to narrow the list of suspects will be taking place in the future and that it will be seen not only as desirable but a very necessary tool in maintaining law and order. The next logical step in the progression is to remove the random nature of the testing and eventually to have a complete file of DNA profiles for the whole population. That would mean the compulsory taking of samples from everyone and the best time to do that is at birth, thereby we will have on file and almost instantly available through computer programmes, the necessary information to identify the perpetrator of a serious crime where a DNA sample would be available.
A thief or other criminal may be able to leave the scene of a crime without having left fingerprints but a rapist by his very nature will leave behind sufficient DNA samples to be able to identify him through his genetic fingerprints. Likewise a killer may leave behind traces of skin under the finger nails of his victim which would readily identify him, saving the public further risk and the police innumerable hours of investigation. I think we would be grossly negligent not to investigate with the utmost speed and determination what this system has to offer. I have no doubt that the demand for such an information bank will be deafening from a public weary of needless crime.
We have come to rely heavily — almost fully on fingerprints and we hold few reservations that there may be a miscarriage of justice as a result of their use. The possibility of two people carrying the same DNA profile are, we are assured, 30 million to one. In practical terms this means that there may be two people in the whole of Britain and Ireland whose profile may match with others. There is a very slim chance that such duplication, with a resultant incorrect accusation, would be successful as other evidence such as alibi would be able to establish a person's innocence. Few methods of detection are foolproof but few are as safe as the one I propose. In other jurisdictions which are properly equipped to use such a system all males, when the known location of a suspect has been narrowed down, may be asked to give samples for DNA testing. It is a voluntary act but those who refuse to co-operate are subject to investigation. In view of the fact that without DNA profiling all of those people would have had to be thoroughly investigated, I would find no difficulty with the system. Equally, the principle that if one is innocent one has no need to fear is applicable, although I know that some people have a difficulty in accepting this reasoning and stand on principle in their objection.
Much of the success of the system would, of course, depend on the level of anonymity accorded those whose "genetic fingerprints" are on record. This would be a vital element, though in the light of the discovery this week of important State packets thrown near a railway line far from their origin and destination, I doubt the capacity of this Government to operate any secure and confidential service. Liberty, a civil right group in England does not oppose the use of genetic fingerprinting though it does sound this note of caution: "We believe that DNA sampling can be a very useful tool in the fight against crime. However, the police must ensure that information from suspects is destroyed if they are eliminated from the inquiries."
This is hardly feasible if the data bank is to be maintained, but a rigorous protection of the information would, of course, be vital. There is no trauma involved in giving a sample of DNA which can be taken as easily from blood, saliva or one strand of hair as from any other source. There would be no risk to anybody and I have been assured that it is possible to successfully take and process the sample at birth.
The proof of its acceptability to the public and its understanding of its necessity is supported in the percentage of people who readily co-operate with the police. There is a public perception that genetic fingerprinting has more uses and advantages than drawbacks and not all the cases in which the system is used are murder, rape and assault. Sometimes it is used merely to identify conclusively the parentage of a child and of course was used in identification in the X case. There is ample precedent at present to show that this form of new technology has many advantages for the public at large and at the risk of repeating myself and I am prepared to state fairly conclusively from my own inquiries that the public would welcome this breakthrough in making and keeping our streets safe.
In recommending this radical measure I caution the Minister against rushing into such a scheme without proper detailed study. I am happy to support it in principle but rigorous safeguards must be built into the system and stringent guidelines defined which will see such a register used only in serious cases of violence.
At their annual conference this week the Garda Representative Association called for a register of serious crimes to be set up which would prevent people who have been convicted of sexual offences being employed in sensitive positions. That is only logical and any reasonable person would not see in this proposal an erosion of civil rights or liberties.
