Domestic Violence Judgments Register Bill 2026 [Seanad]: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-15
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

-----and it involved getting a lot of different views and advices. I remember a lot of coverage a year ago where lots of groups were opposed to this and it was all about the issues that could arise in respect of it. I have managed to get a balancing area - a landing area - that has the support of the House, which is the most significant thing, and has also enabled me to get advice from the Attorney General telling me that we can proceed with this. As Deputy McAuliffe mentioned a few moments ago, what I do not want to do is find that, when a judge is deciding whether to add somebody’s judgment to the register, they say that the person will not be able to bring an application for five years after their conviction or after they are released. It is a question of balancing it. The most important thing is for us to get this up and running and it to be effective. As Deputy McAuliffe said, it would reduce its effectiveness if it was the case that it was moved out to five years after release from prison. You could have been in prison for ten years and then you would have to wait for five years.
On Deputy Gannon’s comments, the point I was making about rehabilitation was that going on the register was obviously not a form of punishment, but we have to recognise that an individual may be reformed and may have changed from the person they were when they committed the offence that led to them being put on the register. If a court was satisfied that the person had gone through treatment and reformed themselves - maybe there were major addiction issues or other issues in their lives that they had overcome and there was evidence to a court to suggest that the threat that had been there when they were put on the register was no longer there – that is a factor that I have to give some recognition to - not a huge amount, but some. It is important in terms of balancing the conflicting interests in the legislation.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-15