I understand that the Deputy's question refers, in particular, to the expunging of the criminal record of an offender where that person is considered to have been rehabilitated, having served a short custodial sentence and not having been convicted of an offence again.
In general, there is no provision in Irish law allowing for the lapsing or non-disclosure of records of criminal convictions. The Employment Equality Act 1998 came into operation on 18 October 1999. The Act outlaws discrimination in relation to employment on nine grounds, namely, gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community. A review of the Act was carried out in 2001 in accordance with section 6(4) of the Act. During the course of the review, a number of new grounds were suggested for inclusion: socio-economic status-social origin, trade union membership, criminal conviction/ex-offender/ex-prisoner and political opinion. It was decided that a detailed examination of the implications of extending the employment equality legislation to the suggested complex new grounds was necessary. The law department of UCC was awarded the contract to carry out a detailed comparative examination of international legislation in relation to the four grounds. The final report will be published shortly. The findings of the research and the information obtained through the Department's consultations in respect of the review will provide the knowledge base necessary for any future policy decisions in this area.
With the introduction of the Children Act 2001, provision was made for a limited wiping of the slate in respect of most offences committed by persons under 18, once certain conditions have been met. This provision, which came into operation on 1 May 2002, limits, as far as possible, the effects of a finding of guilt, where those conditions have been met, by treating the person for all purposes in law as a person who has not committed, been charged with, prosecuted for, found guilty or dealt with for an offence.
The second programme of the Law Reform Commission for the period 2000 to 2007 proposes, as part of an examination of the law on privacy, to consider longevity of criminal records and expunging of certain offences from the records. In addition, the Deputy may wish to note that the Law Reform Commission in its consultation paper on the court poor box, published in March this year, raised the issue of spent conviction schemes and indicated that it would welcome submissions on the issue with a view to a future publication dedicated to a full consideration of whether such a scheme should be introduced in this jurisdiction. I should caution that any proposal for a general clean slate provision would raise complex and difficult issues which would need to be addressed but I will certainly carefully consider any recommendations which the Law Reform Commission may make on the matter.
