Before I call the Minister of State, I welcome the sixth class students from Ballyduff National School in Waterford, who are accompanied today by their teachers, Mr. Pauric Stapleton, Ms Fiona Whelan and Mr. Cian Power. They are very welcome to Leinster House and we hope they have an enjoyable day vising the national Parliament. The Minister of State has ten minutes.
Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022: Second Stage
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I am pleased to present the Bill, which introduces important legislative reforms across a number of areas. The Bill is part of a suite of measures the Department of Justice continues to introduce to improve access to justice and modernise the courts system. While many of the amendments in the legislation are administrative in nature, when enacted it will have a positive impact on citizens, update the civil justice legal framework and further modernise and reform key areas of our civil law. The Bill includes amendments across a diverse range of areas including occupiers' liability, court offices, bankruptcy, Irish nationality and citizenship, international protection, immigration, legal services and the judicial council. The Bill comprises 15 Parts and I will now highlight key provisions.
Part 3 contains amendments to the Civil Liability Act 1961, which provide that in future, the indexation rate for periodic payment orders will be set by regulations made by the Minister for Justice with the consent of the Minister for Finance. The amendments arise from a High Court decision on the existing indexation rate that it was not an appropriate index for use with periodic payment orders, PPOs. The amendments proposed will allow greater flexibility in the setting of the indexation rate and set out the general rule that a periodic payment order will be adjusted, on an annual basis, by reference to an index specified under the section.
Part 4 amends the Juries Act 1976 to streamline the summoning of jurors. Currently, each county register must summon jurors for his or her own jury district. These amendments will enable jurors to be summoned for all jury districts by one centralised office.
Part 5 contains amendments to the Bankruptcy Act 1988. These changes are designed to further modernise and streamline the bankruptcy process and to reduce unnecessary costs and delays for debtors, creditors, the High Court and, in effect, for taxpayers. They will further ensure that bankruptcy procedures support a thorough assessment, and efficient administration, of bankruptcy estates.
Part 6 proposes amendments to the Occupiers Liability Act 1995 in line with the government policy objective of restricting the liability of occupiers. These proposals strike the right balance between ensuring that businesses, community groups and organisers of events fulfil their duty of care responsibilities, while also acknowledging the importance of personal responsibility on the part of customers and members of the public. The amendments contain four key developments. It inserts into primary law a number of recent court decisions that rebalance the duty of care owed by occupiers to visitors and recreational users; changes the standard to clarify that when the occupier of a property has acted with reckless disregard for a visitor or customer, it is the standard of reckless disregard rather than reasonable grounds that should apply in any consideration of liability; limits the circumstances in which a court can impose liability on the occupier of a premises where a person has entered onto premises for the purpose of committing an offence; and allows for a broader range of scenarios where it can be shown that a visitor or customer has voluntarily assumed a risk resulting in harm. It is hoped that these changes will have a positive effect on the reduction of insurance costs.
Amendments to the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 in Part 8 will enable commencement of the section of the Act allowing for the introduction of legal partnerships, which will enable partnerships between solicitors and barristers or between barristers and other barristers. In addition, Part 8 contains a number of amendments which primarily relate to how the annual imposition of a levy on legal practitioners used to fund the Legal Services Regulatory Authority and the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal is calculated. It seeks to ensure that the levy model is sustainable and fair.
Part 10 provides for a number of amendments to the Data Protection Act 2018, which include conferring jurisdiction to hear data protection actions on the District Court as well as, as it currently stands, the Circuit Court and High Court, and broadens the circumstances in which a reprimand can be issued by the Data Protection Commission. Conferring jurisdiction on the District Court will enable faster, less costly access to remedies for the public.
Part 12 amends the Civil and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020. It updates definitions of "criminal proceedings" and related matters. Further amendments provide for optional remote meetings of unincorporated bodies such as golf clubs and voluntary committees and provide for the interfering of hearings held remotely to be considered an offence under the Act.
Finally, among the amendments provided for in Part 15 are those amending the Immigration Act 2004 to ensure that permissions for non-nationals to land or be in the State can be renewed or varied without the holder of the permission having to make application for renewal in every case, and inserting a new section 5A into the Arbitration Act 2010 to permit third-party funding in limited circumstances, specifically with regard to international commercial arbitration.
In conclusion, this Bill introduces a number of important reforms in the law across a broad range of areas. These amendments reach across many aspects of people's lives and have the potential to make a real difference. I look forward to the debate this afternoon and I commend the Bill to the House.
I thank the Minister of State very much. Before we move to our speakers, I welcome the students and teachers of Greystones Community National School to the Chamber. I hope they enjoy their visit to Leinster House and that they see the work of their Parliament today. I hope they enjoy their visit. I also welcome Deputy Feighan who has Members of the House of Lords and friends with him today. I welcome the Members and hope they enjoy their visit to our Parliament today.
I call Senator Wilson on behalf of Fianna Fáil.
I join the Acting Chairman in welcoming Deputy Feighan and his colleagues from the House of Lords, which I understand is a place he aspires to be himself someday. I also welcome the students from Greystones. I hope they enjoy their visit to the Seanad, the Dáil and Leinster House.
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, to the House. I am taking this slot on behalf of my colleague, Senator Horkan, our spokesperson on justice, who is unavoidably detained. I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive outline of the Bill. I do not intend to go back into it in any great detail. While the Bill is mostly administrative in nature, and the amendments may appear to be minor, they also make important changes. These include court-related amendments that will facilitate the centralisation and automation of certain court offices and processes. I understand these are parts of measures the Department of Justice continues to introduce that will improve access to justice and modernise our court system.
In particular, the Bill will help to modernise many of the areas around the administration of the courts. This will have a real impact because, as we know, delays in the court system cause great stress to people. In that regard, I am aware that there are long waiting lists for cases to be heard in the District Court in many areas. I welcome the recent announcement by the Minister that he intends to appoint a number of additional judges. With regard to the District Courts as they currently operate, during Covid-19 anybody who was summonsed to appear before the District Court had to stand outside and wait to be called in. That was understandable; the process had to continue and the judicial system had to operate. Has it returned to normality? Quite recently, I had occasion to go to the court myself when I was charged with allegedly speeding, which I proved I was not.
Of course, the Senator was not.
I had to stay outside the court for six hours in inclement weather, however. It was not only me but many other people as well. That is not acceptable. It should return to normality. Those people are entitled to have their day in court but they are entitled to have the dignity of being allowed into the premises in order that their cases can be heard and that while they are waiting, they are not outside in inclement weather.
With regard to the courts, in recent days, we have been made aware by the Irish Prison Service that there is quite a lot of overcrowding. Is it not time now that we revisited the Thornton Hall project that Senator McDowell, when he was Minister for Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform-----
Hear, hear.
-----put into operation? He purchased land in 2005. Quite a bit of money has been spent on that project in the meantime and 18 years on, it is still lying there. The reason for the purchase of that land was to build a state-of-the-art prison that would facilitate up to 1,400 prisoners. None of us wants to see anybody going to prison but it is a sad reality of life that some people have to be incarcerated. If somebody is incarcerated, he or she is entitled to be facilitated in humane conditions and, unfortunately, that is not happening at the moment. We have to grasp the nettle, bite the bullet, and build a state-of-the-art prison once and for all so that this is not allowed to continue. As we know, our population is increasing dramatically. As a result of that, it is a sad reality that more prison spaces will be needed. I welcome that fact that the Minister said there will be 400 additional spaces within five years. Quite frankly, that is not enough and it is not good enough. We need to invest in a state-of-the-art prison that can facilitate the numbers of prisoners that, unfortunately, we are going to have to facilitate into the future.
The Bill also includes amendments across a diverse range of areas, including bankruptcy, Irish nationality and citizenship, international protection, immigration, legal services, civil legal aid and the Judicial Council, which has been referred here on numerous occasions over the past number of months by Senator McDowell with regard to the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022, which is still going through this House. I understand a number of elements of this legislation will also help to reduce costs, which is very much welcome.
In essence, I welcome the Bill. I wish it a speedy passage through the House. If the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, is not in a position to answer the queries I have raised, I would be grateful if he would be able to find out for me and let me know.
First of all, I welcome the Minister of State to the House.
This Bill is a catch-all measure. I have no objection to that. There are little things that have to be done right across the Department of Justice's portfolio of responsibilities and instead of having a separate Bill for each of them, a catch-all Bill of this kind is a useful vehicle to get them moving.
On the Order of Business today, I asked for a debate on the future of prison policy and the Acting Leader said that he would contact the Department. When I say "a debate", I do not mean ten-minute statements but a real and serious debate about where we are going and what the plan is. The Minister, Deputy Harris, is going to the prison officers' conference today and apparently he will announce that he proposes to demolish the separation unit in Mountjoy Prison and build a 100-cell accommodation unit on the site. The simple fact is that Mountjoy Prison is wholly unsuitable, as Senator Wilson has said. I visited it in 2019. Huge improvements had been achieved by successive governors over the state of affairs that applied when Gary Douch died in appalling circumstances when I was Minister. A commission of investigation was launched into that death. Its report makes sobering reading about the poor administration of the prison at that time, the savagery with which Mr. Douch was killed by a fellow inmate and the negligence that brought it all about. However, we now have between 150 and 200 prisoners sleeping on the floor. We have four prisoners sharing bunks in a cell. The Dóchas prison centre is overcrowded to the extent of 170% of capacity. I do not know what the rate of rotation of the revolving door is now but the circumstances are that as far as this prison is concerned, we will be on the wrong end of a United Nations committee on torture report which will point out that this Dickensian prison needs to be demolished.
As Senator Wilson said, in the early 2000s I sold Shanganagh Prison for housing development. Eventually, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council acquired it and it was handed over to the Land Development Agency. The bones of 20 years later, they are turning the sod to build the first house there. We got €30 million for it. When we spent the €30 million we got for the 30 acres in Shankill on acquiring a 150-acre site at Thornton Hall, we set about building roads and services and carrying out earthworks, etc, on that premises. It was intended as a site for a modern up-to-date prison with facilities such as open-air football pitches. It would have allowed for the separation of categories of prisoners. It would have brought an end to the bullying that arises from overcrowding, as the prison officers' chief has said, along with the violence and the threat of violence. If you are sharing a floor with a whole load of other people and lying on a mattress on that floor, you are obviously in need of protection. I am not saying this in any way to be critical of the people who do their best to try to operate the Prison Service. We stopped Thornton Hall because the money ran out in 2009. One can share the blame, and I will take my part of the blame for that, but now is the time to rebuild it and get on with it.
Correct.
We have, as Senator Wilson said, a growing population. It has increased to 5.1 million from 3.9 million, as it was then. We have very serious crimes being committed. I am the first to say of any District Court judge who thinks it is remotely just to say to some young fellow who resists arrest or spits at a garda that he should go to prison that it is a stupid decision and that he or she is ruining that kid's life. I wanted every District Court judge who committed anybody to a short term of imprisonment to write out in his or her own handwriting why there was no alternative way of dealing with that prisoner-----
Hear, hear.
-----to ensure that it was not done. There is a right of appeal to the Circuit Court but there are people who fall through those cracks and end up in Mountjoy Prison. Their lives are ruined forever.
The time has come for the Department of Justice to face up to the issue. It has between 20 and 30 acres of city-centre prime development land at Mountjoy. To start knocking bits of Mountjoy Prison down and building them up again is simply insane. It is a waste of taxpayers' money. The time has come for the Department to say that it will shift the prison - obviously it will take some time - to Thornton Hall. If it is to build units, it should build them out there. In addition, there should be a decent women's prison. Women get a fair crack of the whip in terms of the justice system, fairer sometimes than men. Men are sometimes jailed in circumstances that a woman would not be jailed for roughly the same kind of thing. That is a good instinct on the part of the Judiciary. I do not criticise it for that. To be honest, every time I see a woman sent to jail, which is very rare, I am reminded that the Dóchas centre is bursting at the seams. There are five women in a cell. Who is standing over this? Who is saying this is right? That is what is going on right now. I do not know what the situation is across the prison estates but it is, in my view, an emergency.
The Gary Douch affair was one in which a prisoner with psychiatric problems was put into a multiple-use cell with other prisoners. Gary Douch was one of those other prisoners and he was horribly killed by a prisoner who was suffering from insanity and had been negligently deprived of his medication. The prisoner in question was dumped in on top of them. The other people in that room knew he was being killed, but they were afraid even to raise the alarm because they feared for their own existence. The commission of investigation into that matter looked at the exact history and responsibility between the two prisons involved. Believe it or not, the fellow who did the killing was brought in from another prison because he was causing trouble there. There was a prisoner swap and that ended up with Mr. Douch being killed. That commission of investigation report allocated responsibility. Because the media did not like the finger of blame being pointed in particular ways at the time, it never published the full extent of what had been found and the blame that was there. I will not put it any further than that.
I was going to talk about some of the other measures, including barrister-solicitor partnerships. I will not do that now. I had only two minutes on the Order of Business, so I will use this opportunity to welcome what Senator Wilson says, and what Senator Conway is saying too by nodding his head. We have got to face up to the prison crisis. Somebody will be found ministerially and administratively to be blamed for something really bad happening very soon, and Ireland will suffer international condemnation for the state of its prisons, if we do not act now.
The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, is, as always, very welcome to the House. He is deputising for the Minister for Justice. In many ways, it is an awful pity that the Minister for Justice is not here to listen to my colleagues, Senators Wilson and McDowell, because for too long what has gone on in this country, in terms of adequate, appropriate and acceptable prison services and facilities, has been disgraceful.
Senator McDowell purchased Thornton Hall on behalf of the State. In essence, it was cost neutral. The site was left sitting there, however. Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries per head of population in Europe, if not the wealthiest, but we have some of the most disgusting prison accommodation in Europe. I was a member of the justice committee for ten years, from 2011 until 2020, and I visited many prisons in this country. I have visited Mountjoy Prison several times. I have also visited prisons abroad. I was in Portugal with the Irish Refugee Council to look at the humane facilities that are available there.
People tend to lose sight of the fact that prison sentences are for a particular period and most, if not all, prisoners, depending on age, will rehabilitate and be released. Our responsibility is to ensure prisoners are rehabilitated. Many of them are there because of circumstances of birth. They never had an opportunity in life. Society was against them in every scenario from A to Z and they never had an opportunity to contribute meaningfully. Most likely, many of them became drug addicts at a young age. The State has a chance to help these people to rehabilitate while they are in prison and to consider alternative pathways in life. Unfortunately, the State is letting them down left, right and centre. That is not because of the decent, genuine, honourable and committed people who work in the Prison Service. They do their work but they are utterly frustrated. The school in Limerick Prison has not been operational for many years because there are no teachers to staff it. What chance is there to help people in their teens, 20s or early 30s to have a chance of a life if the school in a prison is closed? What does that say about us as a nation? The State is violating every human rights directive. It is outrageous. That is not the fault of the Minister of State who is here to listen to us. We need to have a debate in this Chamber on penal reform but, more important, we need to see action on penal reform. When the thousands of people who are currently in jail are released, what hope will they have if the system did not give them any chance while they were in it?
This is, by and large, a technical Bill. The measures in it are positive. My colleague, Senator Wilson, spoke about waiting outside a court for eight hours for a speeding charge to be heard. In the first instance, he should not have been in court for a speeding charge. That shows how messed up the courts system is. Last Monday week, a man who was rightly acquitted of murder walked out the door of the courthouse and there was a media circus around him. Surely to God we, as a society, can come up with better arrangements. There have to be better ways of doing business in respect of that man, as well as the families who may have felt they did not get justice. One would have thought the pandemic would have created a restart button and that Departments would have reflected on what we need to do to improve things. Sadly, that has not happened. I become disheartened because we have been talking about this for ten years. There was no money for the first five years but, since 2016, money has been available. There is no reason for Thornton Hall not being built or a teacher not being allocated to the school in Limerick Prison. It is just not acceptable.
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit agus fáiltím go bhfuil an seal againn an reachtaíocht thábhachtach a phlé anseo inniu. Although the Bill is mostly administrative, as colleagues and the Minister of State have stated, there are several important elements to it that are helpful in the context of creating a fair and just society. It is welcome that the Bill omits the earlier provisions which were cruel for Irish-born children who were locked out of citizenship and faced deportation to countries they never knew. That threat has now been lifted and that is good. The Government needs to introduce legislation in that area soon.
The amendments to the Judicial Council Act are also welcome. The independence of the Judiciary must be preserved alongside misconduct and other issues being addressed. The Minister of State has heard the remarks of Senators regarding the serious concerns in respect of court delays and backlogs. The Government's ongoing review of this needs to report soon.
Bankruptcy law and the personal insolvency practitioner system will become more relevant as the cost-of-living crisis deepens, with many people unable to make ends meet and in need of those services going forward. As regards the prospect of evictions, the offence of obstructing the sheriff needs to be teased out further and I hope we will have the opportunity to do so. With a high number of evictions and repossessions, we do not wish to see people evicted from their homes by private security firms under the supervision of An Garda Síochána, as has occurred on several occasions recently. The changes to the Bankruptcy Act 1988, which cover a statement of affairs and distribution of estate and income as well as payment agreements, including by way of addressing several issues that have been identified by the official assignee in bankruptcy, seem largely in order but will have to be explored further on Committee Stage.
The changes to the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 cater for the realisation of dormant funds, as can currently happen in the High Court. The changes will also allow for the realisation of dormant funds of the Circuit Court and District Court. The amendment to the Judicial Council Act 2019 covers circumstances in which a judge who sits on the council is the subject of a complaint. There are several changes, which might loosely be called technical or miscellaneous, to a range of Acts. Those changes are designed to ensure the Courts Service runs more smoothly and is modernised.
Sinn Féin will be supporting the Bill, subject, as always, to developments on Committee Stage. We have a number of worthwhile observations. Other colleagues have expressed their views on the legislation going forward. I am sure that, as always, we can work with officials and Members across the House to ensure we make the legislation as robust as it needs to be. I apologise to the Minister of State as I have to leave the Chamber to attend a committee meeting and will not be here for his closing remarks. I will, however, read his remarks when they are published in the Official Report.
Before I call Senator Keogan, I welcome the members of the active retirement group from Castleconnell, Limerick. They are most welcome to Leinster House. We hope they enjoy their visit to the national Parliament. It is interesting that some members of the group got special status and are seated in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. They must be very special members of the group.
I appreciate the Acting Chairperson allowing me in to speak on this technical Bill. I thank Senators Wilson, Conway and McDowell for raising the issue of the 164-acre site at Thornton Hall. It is part of the Minister of State's constituency. It has been sitting there for the past 20 or 30 years. A significant amount of money was spent on it. It is fully serviced, with footpaths and lighting right out to it. The sightlines are protected from the public. There is no reason we cannot proceed to build that prison. Evidently, all the prisons, men's and women's, are overcrowded. There is a group of people in the women's prison in Limerick, however, whose prison requirements must also be looked after. I am referring to the transgender women in that prison. We must ensure a new prison that facilitates people from the trans community is constructed. It is important that when that prison is built, it is made all-inclusive. There is no reason for it not to be built. The money is there. The Apple tax will probably come to us in June. The European Court of Justice will be deciding that at the end of May. That is probably €17 billion, approximately, that will be coming back into the Exchequer. That is a significant amount of money. If we are looking for a project to spend money on, this one is ready-made. Let us get on and do it. It is in the Minister of State's area.
He has an opportunity to put a real marker down if he participates in putting a state-of-the-art prison back into Ireland to stop the revolving door system as regards criminality in this country. The Garda and judges have nowhere to put criminals and they are back on the street again. Rehabilitation is also important but we must state that crime does not pay in this country.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Quite a lot of amendments in the Bill are progressive, particularly regarding bankruptcy, which shows how our society has changed, in addition to nationality, citizenship, international protection, immigration, legal services and the Judicial Council. A whole fillet of additions are part of this Bill. They are all very progressive and welcome.
I support the comments of my colleagues, Senators Keogan, Wilson and Conway. We saw the news from the POA this morning on overcrowding. We have heard the stories from Mountjoy Prison of 16 inmates sleeping on mattresses. This is a constant feed. As we know, prisons are oversubscribed at present and, with the new judges who are coming in, we will probably have more custodial sentences. That will be the logical outcome.
I also welcome what Senators Wilson, Keogan and Conway said about the proposed prison in the Minister of State's constituency. It was a good and worthwhile project at the time. The financial downturn came and it did not happen but the time is now right. We certainly have the money and it is something well worth looking at. We are talking about approximately 400 prison spaces over five years, which would be an immediate reaction to the problem we have. I thank the Acting Chairperson and the Minister of State.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the Bill. I thank all the Senators for their contributions to the debate.
Miscellaneous provisions Bills such as this offer an important opportunity to bring legislation up to date across a broad range of areas, from rebalancing occupier's liability to centralising and automating court offices and processes, and from improving citizenship and naturalisation procedures to further modernising our legislation in areas such as bankruptcy and data protection. When enacted, this Bill will have a positive impact across society and make a real difference to people's lives.
I note a common theme in the contributions that I will bring back to the Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris, regarding prison conditions and prison capacity. I was not aware of the courts issue raised by Senator Wilson. I do not know the answer to his question regarding Covid procedures. I will, however, take these issues back to the Minister. A fairly strong message is coming back and Committee Stage will offer a little more opportunity to tease out some of the details of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?
Next Tuesday.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 2 May 2023.
When is it proposed to sit again?
Next Wednesday at 1.30 p.m.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar athló ar 1.13 p.m. go dtí 1.30 p.m., Dé Céadaoin, an 3 Bealtaine 2023.
The Seanad adjourned at 1.13 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 3 May 2023.