Longer sentences mean building more prison spaces, says Ahern

SEANAD REPORT:A LABOUR Party amendment to the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Bill supported a point he had made to an Oireachtas committee yesterday about prison overcrowding, said Minister for Justice and Law Reform Dermot Ahern. The Bill was passed.

The Labour amendment increases from six to 12 months the prison term for obstructing Garda or Customs personnel exercising their power under the legislation, designed to outlaw the sale of psychoactive substances in so-called head shops.

Mr Ahern said the issue of overcrowding in prisons had been raised at the meeting of the committee. He had repeatedly made the point that “we come into the Oireachtas and we keep increasing sentences. But there is an effect of increasing sentences, and that is that people are in prison longer.

“None of us wants to have people in prison if we can help it, but the reality is that if the Oireachtas keeps raising the bar in relation to sentencing, we are sending a signal to the judiciary and they are going to give close to the maximum sentences, and that means there will be people longer in prison. That will mean, in effect, that we will have to build more prison spaces.”

Ivana Bacik (Labour) said she believed it was not a good idea generally to increase sentences. Perhaps there was some argument for doing it in this case because the proposed change was in line with provisions in public order law.

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Feargal Quinn (Ind) urged the Minister for Finance to follow the example of the US government in setting up a website showing all government expenditure above a certain level. Consideration was being given to the introduction of a similar facility in Britain. The disclosure level in the US applied to any spending over $25,000.

“It appears to me that this is something the Minister should be working towards because, instead of having to carry out investigations into what happened in the past, we would all be able to watch this to see exactly what Government expenditure is taking place.”