I really welcome the opportunity to address Dáil Éireann today regarding the Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018 on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan. Unfortunately he is in Brussels today and that is the only reason he is not here. At the outset, I acknowledge the work that has brought us to this point, some of which was so well described by Deputy Gannon. This Bill was first introduced to Seanad Éireann in 2018 by Senator Ruane. It completed all Stages there in June 2021 and I recognise, as Deputy Gannon did, her absolute commitment, persistence and strong advocacy on this. I thank Deputy Gannon for bringing the Bill before this House for consideration on Second Stage. As someone who has been a Deputy as well as a Minister of State, I acknowledge that incredibly hard work is done in offices by the staff in those offices and they are the people who give us the ability to stand here and make these speeches. A lot of hard work goes into it and it is good to see it acknowledged. The Bill has benefited from engagement across successive Governments, which reflects the serious importance of the issues involved. It was not opposed on Committee Stage in 2019 by then Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charlie Flanagan. In 2021, Government approval was secured by then Minister for Justice, Deputy Helen McEntee, for the Bill to proceed, subject to the opportunity to introduce amendments. This week, as I mentioned, the Minister brought a memo to the Government seeking approval to continue with the approach of not opposing the Bill on Second Stage and I can confirm that was endorsed by the Cabinet. A conviction can carry consequences for an individual far beyond the sentence imposed by a court. It can affect, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, everything from employment to housing, education and training. It can limit opportunity. It creates barriers that make reintegration more difficult, and it can increase the risk of returning to offending. At its core, the Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018 sets out to improve the opportunities available to people with convictions at the lower end of the scale who have moved away from offending and want to get on with their lives and to become productive members of society. The Bill aims to do this by amending the current legal regime dealing with spent convictions. A spent conviction is not erased from the record. It does not rewrite a person’s history. Instead, after a specified period of time - referred to in this Bill as the rehabilitative period - and subject to certain conditions, a conviction is only required to be disclosed in certain specific and sensitive circumstances, for example when applying for certain types of employment or during the investigation of a criminal matter. The principle behind this is straightforward. If a person has demonstrated over a sustained period that they have not re-offended, the law should recognise that rehabilitation and allow an opportunity for a second chance. Currently, the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016 permits a single conviction to become spent if it is handed down in the District Court, or if it carries less than 12 months’ imprisonment when handed down by any other court. Seven years must also pass from the date of conviction. The Act provides for some limited exceptions to the limit of a single conviction for certain common minor offences such as the majority of convictions in the District Court for minor public order offences; and the majority of convictions in the District Court for motoring offences, with the exception that only one dangerous driving conviction can become spent. However, sexual offences, sentences of imprisonment for 12 months or more, and offences which are tried in the Central Criminal Court cannot become spent. A conviction resulting in a non-custodial sentence of 24 months or less, where offenders are managed within the community, can also become spent after seven years. This includes suspended sentences of up to two years' imprisonment. I will now turn to the Bill, which proposes significant amendments to the 2016 Act to provide for broader access to the spent convictions regime. It proposes to extend the existing spent convictions legislation to include non-custodial sentences of up to 48 months and custodial sentences of up to 24 months. Under the current system, individuals with more than one qualifying conviction are excluded from spent convictions. The Bill would remove that automatic exclusion. However, it introduces a safeguard whereby, if a new offence is committed within an existing rehabilitative period, that person’s convictions would remain unspent until the most recent rehabilitative period has expired. In doing this, the proposed system would reward those who demonstrate a sustained pattern of law-abiding behaviour. Third, the Bill links the length of the sentence imposed on an offender to the length of the rehabilitative period. This introduces an element of proportionality to spent convictions and seeks to align the consequences more closely with the gravity of the offence. The Bill also provides for differential treatment for young adults aged 18 to 24. It recognises that this cohort is at a distinct developmental stage and proposes shorter rehabilitative periods. An amendment is proposed to the Children’s Act 2001 to ensure that children are not treated less favourably than young adults in comparable circumstances. The Bill includes a provision for a review of the operation of the amended legislation to commence no later than two years after enactment, with a further year allowed for the preparation of a report for the Oireachtas. An amendment is proposed to the Employment Equality Act 1998 that seeks to ensure that spent convictions are not a factor in recruitment and employment decisions. The Bill, as initiated, sought to introduce significant reform to the current spent convictions regime. The reach of the Bill was further broadened by Committee Stage amendments in the Seanad following the publication of a report in 2019 by the Joint Committee on Justice. Following the 2019 report, the Department of Justice undertook additional analysis and commissioned comparative research examining how other jurisdictions approach similar issues. As part of this work, a public consultation process was carried out to consider spent convictions through the lens of sentence length and number of convictions; proportionality and youth; and the victim’s perspective. There is broad agreement that supporting access to employment and training for individuals involved in small-scale offending increases the likelihood of long-term disengagement from criminal activity and reduces re-offending. The Deputies may be aware that the Department of justice is carrying out work in this area. The Department is working with other criminal justice stakeholders to provide supports to people who have ceased offending and assist them in developing the stability needed to successfully rehabilitate and move away from offending. The Building Pathways Together 2025-2027 strategy document was published in late 2024. This is the third successive employment-focused strategy produced by the Department. The aim is to remove barriers to employment for people with criminal convictions and to support employers who are willing to take on people with previous convictions. A key contribution to the development of the strategy was inputs from those with direct experiences of the impacts of contact with the criminal justice system. It is important that we take great care in our approach to reforms of criminal justice provisions, ensuring that serious offences remain subject to appropriate safeguards. We must ensure clarity for individuals navigating the system and functionality for those operating within the criminal justice system, such as An Garda Síochána. The Minister is committed to engaging constructively on the Bill. The Department has carefully considered the available evidence, the findings of research, submissions received during consultation and the practical implications of the proposed reforms. The Government intends to bring forward amendments to ensure that the final legislation is robust, workable and balanced. First, we propose to amend the matrix of rehabilitative periods set out in the Bill, which links the length of the sentence imposed to the length of the rehabilitative period. We fully support the principle underpinning this approach. However, in its current form, it would introduce a significant level of complexity to the operation of vetting disclosures. It would also give rise to a substantial increase in the number of parameters that must be considered and to practical challenges in relation to data management and retention. This would risk the system becoming cumbersome and difficult to manage for those responsible for implementing the law. For that reason, proposed amendments will simplify the matrix, while retaining the core objective of greater proportionality. Further work is needed to refine the model in order that it strikes the right balance between fairness and practicality. The Minister intends to introduce an amendment to address an important gap in the current law, namely convictions imposed by courts outside this jurisdiction. This is contemplated in the Bill in a limited manner in the proposed amendment to the Employment Equality Act 1998. As it stands, the law on spent convictions does not cover any sentences handed down by courts outside the State. In our increasingly interconnected world, this exclusion can create inequalities. Someone who is rehabilitated and has remained offence free for many years may continue to face barriers in Ireland simply because their conviction arose elsewhere. Therefore, an amendment will be brought forward to provide a mechanism whereby relevant convictions from outside the State may be considered within the scope of the legislation, subject, of course, to appropriate safeguards. The inclusion of a statutory review mechanism in the Bill is welcome. Given the nature of the changes proposed, it is entirely appropriate that we assess their impact. However, the Government proposes that the review should commence after three years rather than two, which would allow more time for the collection and analysis of meaningful data. We will need to understand how the amended regime operates in practice and whether it has the intended impact on employment access and reintegration. In the context of the proposed amendment to the Employment Equality Act 1998, the intention is that a person with spent convictions could not be treated less favourably or discriminated against by a prospective employer in relation to access to employment or conditions of employment. In the time since this Bill was last debated in 2021, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality has carried out a review of the Equality Acts and published the general scheme of the equality (miscellaneous provisions) Bill 2024. The Joint Committee on Children and Equality recommended in its pre-legislative scrutiny report that this issue should be addressed in that proposed legislation. I understand that this matter will be given due consideration during the drafting process. The objective for bringing forward these amendments is clear, namely to strengthen the Bill, ensure it is workable in practice and deliver a spent convictions regime that is fair, proportionate and capable of being effectively implemented. In doing so, we strengthen not only our justice system but also our society as a whole.

Sentiment score: 0.16