Madam, - Fintan O'Toole's column (May 9th) is a facetious and facile attempt to misrepresent the tone of Enda Kenny's speech to the Fine Gael Ardfheis on Saturday night.
Notwithstanding that Mr O'Toole chose selectively from several Fine Gael policies and bemoaned aspects of them that simply are not accurate, there is one particular untruth with which I wish to take issue.
He stated with great conviction that the electronic tagging of accused persons who are released on bail was "unconstitutional on at least two levels".
According to Mr O'Toole, the first such level was that "politicians can't impose criminal sanctions like tagging". There was never any suggestion that politicians would be doing so.
The Fine Gael policy, as stated by Deputy Kenny last Saturday evening, was to introduce new legislation to authorise the judge to electronically tag someone as a condition of bail, just as many other conditions can be attached to bail, such as signing on at Garda stations, not entering a particular area, surrendering a passport, lodging a surety, etc.
The second level that is apparently unconstitutional is that "even the courts can't impose criminal sanctions on people who have not been tried". Yes, they can.
When someone is charged with a serious offence, the issue of bail arises. In the first instance, subject to certain criteria (eg the likelihood of the person to abscond, reoffend or interfere with witnesses while on bail), the court may deny bail, and if it so decides, it imposes a criminal sanction on a person who has not been tried.
If bail is granted, the court can use a number of measures to ensure that he or she does not breach the conditions of bail, some of which I have outlined above. Fine Gael is proposing to further empower the court to electronically tag persons on bail.
These rules exist for the protection of society and to ensure justice is served.
They are an important element of our criminal justice system and universally accepted as being necessary.
The Fine Gael proposal has been carefully thought through and examined by several leading criminal lawyers and the issues of constitutionality does not arise. - Yours, etc,
JIM O'KEEFFE TD,
Fine Gael Spokesperson on
Justice,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.
Madam, - In his leader's speech at last weekend's Fine Gael Ardfheis, Enda Kenny vowed to come down hard on weekend warriors, reckless ministers, unsuitable A&E work practices and judges who refuse to hear "the voice of the people".
As Taoiseach he would combat rampant criminality by removing the possibility of bail in certain cases and by electronically tagging those who manage to secure release on bail. The end product, he assures us, would be "a government driven by your dreams".
Such a strong emphasis on sweeping reforms and punitive measures, coupled with an obvious disdain for meaningful dialogue, suggests not a government driven by dreams but the potential nightmare that is an authoritarian utopia fuelled by crass populism. - Is mise,
AIDAN O'DONOGHUE,
Lr Rathmines Rd,
Dublin.