Amendments Nos. 35, 36 and 37 are related. Amendment No. 35a is an alternative to amendment No. 35. Amendments Nos. 36a and 36b are alternatives to amendment No. 36. Amendment No. 37a is an alternative to amendment No 37. Amendments Nos. 35, 35a, 36, 36a, 36b, 37 and 37a will be taken together by agreement.
SECTION 15.
I move amendment No. 35:
In page 14, subsection (1) (a), line 7 to delete "£1,000" and substitute "the value of the total of the goods being sold to the nearest £100".
All the amendments to section 15 seek to ensure that in whatever legislation goes through the penalty relates to the crime and that maximum fines, whether £1,000 or in some instances £10,000, are not used against people selling goods which are worth only a few shillings. I made this point earlier but it relates specifically to these amendments.
Prior to 1980 the fines imposed were very small but in that year they were increased to £500. It was argued at the time that those fines were directed at the big traders to whom other Members referred in these discussions. However, maximum fines of £500 have regularly been imposed on women selling a few flowers. They could not pay the fines and ended up in Mountjoy, at a huge cost to the State, and stayed there for a week or more. That has been the experience since 1980.
I would have thought that when bringing in new legislation or updating legislation one of the purposes would be to act on the experience gained in the interim. Unfortunately, what is proposed compounds the problem to a far greater degree. These are new fines so the Minister cannot run for cover by saying they exist already. These are vastly increased fines, including fines of £500 per day or part thereof. On previous experience, these fines will be utilised under the influence of big business in the city centre to get rid of a handful of women trying to make a living. The Minister said repeatedly today that there is a difficulty when putting together legislation in dealing with different categories. That merely means it would require a certain amount of work to come up with more complex legislation.
The advice on the drink driving legislation was that it would be too complicated to phase the penalties. Then there was a national outcry and it became possible overnight to do that. I am presuming the Minister would have used that as an argument but I do not accept it. It is possible to relate penalty to the value of the goods being sold, and in doing so to relate the penalty to the degree of crime. I do not for a minute consider it a crime to sell apples on the streets of Dublin but this legislation makes it a crime to do so without a pitch and a licence. I ask the Minister to look at this again, to send his officials back to the drawing board and to see if they can come up with some method of confining these very large fines to people who are liable to pay and who are making profits that would allow them to pay them. The penalties required for the small person should be designed with that — and the value of the goods — in mind. We should not use a sledge-hammer to crack a nut.
The amendments are all intended to be helpful and arise out of experience of Deputy Gregory's concern and mine. My amendments effectively restore the penalties to the levels prescribed in the 1980 legislation and which, from experience in implementing the legislation, were shown to be quite excessive. Any garda to whom Members speak could inform them of that.
It is important that the penalty fits the crime. When debating legislation we should consider what options are available for the various offences that come before the courts. We should use as broad a range of options as possible. Custodial detention is one option; imposition of a fine is another but, unfortunately, our legislation seems to be limited to those two options. I would like to see a broader range so that judges will have greater discretion in finding a penalty to suit a particular offence. We are talking about a range of options. We are not talking about putting a penalty in place which precludes the other option. If there is a fine, it must reasonably suit the offence. If the person who is fined does not have the money and cannot pay the fine the only penalty that remains is detention. That is exactly the effect of this legislation and those hefty fines, including a daily accruement, so this it not an option for the judges.
This legislation acts as an obstruction to fines being paid and to ensure that people who come before the courts in this fashion continue to clutter up our prisons. We have been talking about prison reform for a long time but we are not providing the requisite range of options in our legislation to help to keep people who do not need to be in prison out of it. Those who will come before the courts under this legislation are not a serious threat to the public, yet because of the manner in which we have put together these penalties we are ensuring that a large number of people — the numbers will be increasing because this legislation will further define the whole area of casual trading — who would otherwise be exempted, will come within its ambit.
A host of new people will have to be dealt with by the local authority, the security authorities, the gardaí and the prison authorities. A greater number of people will now go before the courts because of this legislation and, because of the way the penalties are prescribed, there will be an even greater number going to prison. The Minister should think about that and look at the reductions suggested here. Those I suggested are in line with the 1980 legislation which were excessive and intended for people selling electronic goods, many of which had been smuggled from Northern Ireland. The penalties were not intended for those selling perishable goods, the small operator. I ask the Minister to look at the legislation in terms of getting the penalty to fit the crime and in terms of having a further range of penalty options such as imprisonment, community service orders restitution, and come back to us on that.
Deputy Gregory mentioned the Road Traffic Act. I was the person who perceived the dangers and implications for rural areas and culture in that legislation. Many people at the time ridiculed me, but it gathered speed at a pace I never believed would happen. I was one of the most vigilant Deputies in this regard.
One of the problems is that casual traders are competing against legitimate traders who pay rates and taxes and their employees' trade union wages in many cases. We cannot say that of all legitimate traders but by and large people in that area are above board in doing their business. Trying to rear a family in the competitive world of trading is difficult. I have always respected Deputy Gregory's views, he talks about the severity of the penalties and that they should be phased and he also speaks about the type of trader about whom he is concerned and the difficulties they will experience in the penalty area.
I met several interested parties on this Bill who put extreme pressure on to have it implemented in its entirety. They were concerned about some of the interference with the Bill. I have two newspaper cuttings. The heading of one is "Chaos caused by traders in Kanturk" and the heading on the other is "Ballincollig invaded by traders". If there is not a penalty to fit the crime, we cannot solve the problem. During discussion on another section the Minister undertook to look at the matter again before Report Stage. In a Christian country, it is important that we have Christian values; charity begins at home.
The financial penalties included in section 15 are consistent with the maximum penalties in current legislation. It is not necessarily understood that the maximum provisions in the sections to which Deputies have tabled amendments no more than reflect current norms. It is at the discretion of the courts to decide the appropriate fines bearing in mind the circumstances of each case. Maximum fines will not be imposed in every instance. In addition, a judge, in fixing the amount of a penalty, is required to take account, among other things, the means of the offender as far as they are known at the time. The idea of estimating the value of goods, as proposed by Deputy Gregory, would give rise to serious problems for the courts in determining the fine to be imposed. If this was the case, it would represent an obstruction in the effective enforcement of the Act.
I assure Deputy Gregory that it is not because of a lack of industry on my part or that of my officials that I have failed to crack this diversity between circumstances which are appropriate in the case of rural, provincial Ireland and urban Ireland. The Deputy knows better than most that this Bill has been in abeyance for more than a year. If hard work could solve the conundrum, it would have been done before now. Deputy O'Keeffe would still advance the argument he is making and nobody can say his point of view is not as legitimate as anybody else's because he is accurately representing a situation which obtains outsde the major urban centres. He may be right that I should consider this. I say this with the same lack of vigour I had earlier because I do not know what a further examinaton will achieve. I have heard the arguments made by Deputies. It may be the case that a summary conviction ought to be weighted differently than a conviction on indictment. I take Deputy O'Keeffe's advice and I will consider it.
The point I made about extending the range of options in terms of penalties is not mentioned in any of the amendments.
The Minister has given an undertaking to look at this.
He did not refer to this. Will he consider it in his reassessment? Will he specify in the legislation a wider range of options which could be used as penalties? Only two options — fines and imprisonment — are included in the Bill and there are others which could be considered. Community service is one. Work could be done in the community which would be equal to the value of the fine.
These women do a great deal of work in the community already.
They certainly do.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 35a, 36, 36a, 36b, 37, 37a, and 37b not moved.
Section 15 agreed to.