Domestic Violence Judgments Register Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-25
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I thank the Senator for these three amendments. As she said, they seek to broaden the scope of the legislation to include a number of other offences that would trigger potential disclosure on the register of judgments. The other offences that she said should be included are assault where it is committed against an intimate partner, a breach of a protective order granted under the Domestic Violence Act and the recording, distributing or publishing of an intimate image without consent contrary to section 3 of the harmful communications Act. As she indicated, all of these are summary offences. Summary offences are offences that are tried in the District Court without a jury. They are supposed to be dealt with summarily and quickly. To be frank, they are less serious offences than indictable offences. That is how the legal system regards them.
I understand the rationale behind seeking to include these offences in the domestic violence register of judgments. These are offences that may be perpetrated by a domestic abuser. Such abuse may escalate to more serious acts of violence or it may not. It is nonetheless to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
However, as I outlined on Second Stage in the House, this legislation represents a new departure. It is novel legislation insofar as it gives a statutory power to the criminal courts in relation to delivering a judgment to be put on a register of judgments. This is not currently the practice in those courts, namely, the Circuit Criminal Court. It is for this reason that I have taken the decision to limit the scope of the legislation to indictable offences. These offences, by their nature, are at the most serious level of offending. The perpetrators of such offences are dangerous people. This measure will contribute to the identification of such abusers, providing knowledge that may make a material difference to someone's life.
I welcome Jason Poole to the Gallery. While I was reading that out, I was thinking of the circumstances of Jennifer Poole. The person who murdered her had convictions for previous serious indictable offences. Obviously, a situation like that, which has inspired the introduction of Jennie's law, is the type thing that we want to ensure is covered. It is covered.
During pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, there were some recommendations made by the committee on justice. I expanded the scope of the Bill on foot of those recommendations. It now includes the offences of harassment, stalking and distributing or publishing an intimate image without consent. I say this simply to illustrate that I consider all recommendations and amendments and, where appropriate, I will take them on board. Nonetheless, I do not believe I should accept these amendments, which would include in the Bill summary offences. That is how they referred to. The legislation is novel and it remains to be seen how it will function in practice. It is also liable to be challenged. I have to keep a balance between rehabilitation - the proportionality between that - and the offences. If I was to include convictions for what are referred to technically within the legal system as minor offences - I am not saying that they are - then it could upset the equilibrium that I have been very careful to establish here.
This is introductory legislation. It is novel. I will keep a very close eye on it. I am open to reviewing and revisiting the legislation once it is up and running. It may be the case that I will come back in due course or whoever is the Minister for justice may come back with a proposal to add to the list of offences that trigger this legislation. In the future, that could include summary offences as opposed to just indictable offences. I would like to see how it operates first of all in respect of indictable offences and we can proceed from there in the future.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-25