Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-06-10 ============================================================ Alan Kelly (LAB), Tipperary North I just have a few brief comments to make. The issue in relation to the pre-1922 convictions is obviously different to what the working group said, which is a pity and the previous speaker spoke about military archives as well. How do we deal with that? The working group proposed a dedicated independent body as the first contact, modelled on the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC. This is the first time we are getting this component of the legislation put into this Bill. We will not go back and talk about that again. However, was that something the Minister considered or does everything have to be transmitted through the Department of justice and the Minister himself? Everything is basically being routed one way. Does the Minister think that is the best way of doing it? If that is going to be the Minister's style with regard to everything, that is fine. In many other scenarios they would have gone through some form of independent process to cross-check and review everything one step away. Ministers usually like to be one step away but in fairness to the Minister in this case, he is right in there. On having no first point-of-contact body with support and advocacy, it is more the advocacy part of it that I am on about. There will be a lot of emotion in this regard in many cases and there is no standing panel of assessors. The working group also proposed a hierarchical but flexible approach regarding representatives for deceased people. The query relates to the structure that is there for immediate family members, including cohabitants and partners, having a priority. If nobody immediate is willing to put forward the case for somebody, can somebody who is a close friend do it? Is there any process? I ask because there will be circumstances like that, given the nature of what we are discussing. Is there any potential pathway for somebody to act on behalf of somebody who is deceased to honour their wish, if there was a wish, for this to be dealt with? The working group also devoted a dedicated chapter in the form of statements as the mechanism for cases where records no longer exist or are insufficient. It made specific recommendations on how such statements should be sought and assessed but the Bill does not contain an equivalent provision. So, there is no express mechanism for disregarding a conviction where no records can be found. Independent persons may seek information from public bodies but there is no formal statement procedure as a substitute where a person or persons would make a formal statement but where there are no records. There can be reasons why records cannot be found, which the Minister has spoken about himself before in relation to other matters. Is there a process where the Minister could consider that formal statements could constitute a submission to this? He might look at that in the Seanad because I think it is probably the most important point I am going to make here as regards any amendments to this. The review process the Minister has proposed in relation to a 28-day timeline is fine but it is different from what the review said as well. I have a couple of final points. The working group recommended that the State apology of 2018 be reiterated on the launch of this scheme, and that individualised letters of apology from the Minister be provided to successful applicants. That is not in the Bill. Is that something the Minister would consider? It is quite an emotional issue, so I think it would be very nice. It is not a must-do but it would be a nice thing to do, in fairness, given the topic we are talking about. The working group also recommended a fixed time limit for making applications. The Bill imposes a 24-month limitation period but I have read there that the Minister has discretion to extend that, so that is probably okay. They are my honest contributions. There may be a couple of issues there, particularly in relation to where statements could be made in support where there is no documentation available. The Minister might consider that. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-10