That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend and extend the Maternity Protection Act 1994 and to provide for postponement of maternity leave where a mother has been diagnosed with cancer or other serious illness during pregnancy, and to provide for related matters.
The purpose of this Bill is to amend the maternity protection Acts so that a mother who has recently given birth to a child but who has been diagnosed during pregnancy or immediately after it with cancer or another serious illness may propose postpone her maternity leave until after she has had treatment for the cancer or the serious illness. Each year in Ireland approximately 60 women are diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy or immediately after the birth of their child. I do not have specific statistics on the number of women who are diagnosed with another serious illness during pregnancy or immediately after the birth of their child but I suspect it is as high. Approximately 120 to 150 women per year find themselves in the very distressful and unfortunate position that at a time just after they have given birth to a child and should be enjoying their maternity leave, instead they find themselves in the situation where they are effectively on sick leave and are getting treated for cancer or another serious illness.
The effect of that is the time they are supposed to be spending on maternity leave is being eaten up by treatment for their illness. In effect, the maternity leave to which they are entitled never really comes into operation because while they are out from work in the immediate aftermath of the birth of their child, they are being treated for a serious illness that in ordinary course is covered by sick leave.
This is an unfortunate, and clearly not an intended, circumstance that exists within our legislation. It is, however, something that could be rectified by the enactment of this legislation.
I wish the Taoiseach all the best in his future career and, in fairness to him, he played a significant role in introducing paternity leave in Ireland. It would be a worthwhile addition to his legacy if he expedited this legislation. The reason for that is that we find ourselves in the unusual position where men in Ireland are able to postpone their paternity leave to a time that suits them. Conversely, however, women have no similar entitlement to postpone their maternity leave in circumstances where they have been diagnosed with cancer or another serious illness. I am concerned that this dichotomy between the treatment of men and women may raise issues under Article 40.1 of the Constitution but, notwithstanding that, every Member will recognise that there is an inherent unfairness in not permitting women to postpone their maternity leave so that they can enjoy their time with their child after they have had their treatment for the serious illness. The effect of not doing so means that they do not really get the benefit of the maternity leave that every Member knows is so important.
The legislation seeks to amend the Maternity Protection Bill, which was enacted in 1994 and which was further amended in 2004. The proposed legislation seeks to introduce a new section 14(c) after 14(b). It provides that a woman who has been diagnosed with cancer or another serious illness during pregnancy or in the immediate aftermath of her pregnancy may then postpone that maternity leave to a time when she has recovered from the illness or the cancer.
It then proposes after that a certain regime, which takes into account the entitlement of the employer to be apprised of the fact that the woman is seeking to postpone the maternity leave. It also seeks to recognise the fact that this will not interfere with any entitlements an employee may have to sick leave under the Sick Leave Act 2022.
I ask that consideration be given to this Bill. As I have mentioned, the Taoiseach deserves to be commended on the role he played with regard to paternity laws that were introduced. We have a situation such as this, where the maternity laws are manifestly unfair to that very small cohort of women who find themselves in the unfortunate situation that their maternity leave has been overtaken by sick leave because of an illness they have contracted during pregnancy or afterwards. They are then precluded from the benefits of the Acts. It is something that everyone in the House will agree would be of benefit to women. It has the support of the Irish Cancer Society and I am sure it has the support of other organisations as well who have the priority of women at the foremost of their interest.
Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 20 Mar 2024
An Bille um Chosaint Máithreachais (Leasú), 2024 Maternity Protection (Amendment) Bill 2024
Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman has been warned that he has allowed the creation of a “permanent blight” in central Dublin where a “tent city” of homeless asylum seekers is growing.
Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan said in a letter to the minister there had been exponential growth in the “tent city” of refugees outside the International Protection Office (IPO) in Mount Street.
It is an “appalling situation” that has been allowed to fester, he said, and was considerably worse than ever before.
“The number of people in tents is growing on a daily basis,” he wrote.
There are an estimated 1,000 asylum seekers homeless, with about 220 now in the encampment, where conditions have been described as appalling with no hygiene facilities.
There are now approximately 150 tents, he said. These were now blocking the public footpath “preventing wheelchair users and other members of the public” from being able to pass.
Mr O’Callaghan said the “whole area is now a complete mess with rubbish and detritus everywhere to a much more severe degree than in previous weeks”.
“It is now a permanent blight on our city — particularly as our national holiday approaches,” he said, referring to St Patrick’s Day.
It will also get worse, given the lack of space at the IPO, he said.
“There is a significant risk that there will be an outbreak of disease in the area,” Mr O’Callaghan warned.
“This will have very detrimental consequences, not only on the applicants in tents but also on the people in the surrounding vicinity.
Written by Senan Molony
If a person is found guilty of murder, only one kind of sentence is handed down to them.
It is called ‘imprisonment for life’ but, in reality, most convicted murderers will one day walk out of prison.
Figures provided to Prime Time by the Department of Justice show that, as of 27 February, there are 117 male and five female life-sentence prisoners living in the community.
“Some people are currently out on supervision for longer than they served in prison,” former head of the Probation Service Vivian Geiran told Prime Time.
“They might be on release since the 1980s or 90s. The vast majority of those, in my experience, do go on to live productive and positive and pro-social lives.”
The next stage of the life sentence after leaving prison is in the community, where a prisoner is subject to recall to prison if they breach parole conditions.
The amount of time spent in prison depends on what decade a murderer was convicted. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the average time a life sentence prisoner spent in jail was around seven-and-a-half or eight years.
However, in recent years, time spent in prison has dramatically increased for those convicted of murder.
The Department of Justice told Prime Time that the eight life sentence prisoners released ‘on licence’ last year had spent an average of 24 years in prison. That is the highest ever yearly average recorded in Ireland.
The previous year was the second highest average time spent in prison for ‘lifers’ released. The four ‘lifers’ released in 2022 spent an average of 22-and-a-half years behind bars.
Over the past 10 years, the average time spent in custody for released prisoners was 20 years.
In line with the experience of many other western countries, the amount of prison time experienced by life sentence prisoners has increased in this century.
In Ireland, the 2010s has seen consistently high averages for time spent in prison compared to the 2000s.
For example, the four ‘lifers’ released in 2012 had spent 22 years in jail; while the three ‘lifers’ released in 2002 had spent 11 years in jail, on average.
“Imprisonment in the first instance is about punishment,” said Mr Geiran.
“It’s about holding the person to account. In a life sentence there is the punitive aspect. How long is an appropriate time for an individual to serve in custody on the basis of the gravity of the offence? At what point can we say they’ve done enough time and they are a reasonable prospect for rehabilitation and re-integration?”
The longest serving life sentence prisoner in Ireland is John Shaw who, along with his now deceased fellow Englishman Geoffrey Evans, abducted, raped and murdered women in Co Wicklow and Co Mayo in 1976.
Shaw and Evans hid the body of their first victim off the Wicklow coast; they weighed the body of their second victim down in a lake in Co Galway.
Shaw is a prisoner at Arbour Hill Prison and very occasionally is brought into Dublin city centre in the company and custody of prison officers on escorted released.
That is the extent of his release into the community. He has sought parole but this has been rejected on many occasions.
Statistically, life sentence prisoners are less likely to re-offend than other released prisoners.
The Central Statistics Office provided Prime Time with figures which show that, in 2021, 20 people were released from prison for homicide-related offences.
This included 13 life sentence prisoners convicted of murder, and seven who served determinate sentences for manslaughter; a specific period of years imposed by the sentencing judge.
Of those 20 convicted killers who left prison, four committed another criminal offence within a year. That’s a 20% re-offending rate.
By comparison, 41% of all other prisoners released that same year re-offended within 12 months.
The statistics across other years show a similar picture. The vast majority of life sentence prisoners released into the community are not detected for further offences.
The problem, however, is that of the smaller number that do re-offend – sometimes it can be in the most horrific manner.
Richard Kearney was just 17-years-old when he murdered a 72-year-old woman who he beat to death after breaking into her home in Finglas in 1998.
He was convicted of murder following a trial and given the mandatory sentence of ‘life imprisonment’.
Kearney had been released on licence, having served 19 years of a life sentence in jail for murder.
Kearney was ‘crime-free’ for a number of years after being released on licence. But five years after being released, he attacked another woman at her home, as well as two elderly priests in their home. He also accosted a prison chaplain in her home.
Kearney was jailed for eight years for those offences in 2023, and his life sentence will now continue within a prison cell.
The crimes of Thomas Murray will live long in the minds of those who know what he did.
Murray murdered a man in 1981 and was jailed for life.
However, it was while on day release from that life sentence in 2000 he murdered a second elderly victim, an 80-year-old woman, in Co Galway.
It is still shocking to consider that the evening Murray murdered his second victim he returned to Castlerea Prison as arranged to continue serving his first life sentence.
A short time later Gardaí identified Murray as the killer. He is now serving two life sentences.
Both Murray’s life sentences were mandatory; in neither case did the judge have the discretion to impose a minimum tariff by which Murray should have remained in prison before parole might be considered.
It is a source of much ongoing debate that when it comes to the most serious crime on the statute book – a judge is nothing more than a rubber stamp once a trial has concluded.
All the judge can do is formally impose the mandatory sentence. The judge cannot bring their legal nous to bear on the case, cannot mark the severity of certain crimes, cannot give a guide for generations to come that a particular offender has committed particularly stark and shocking crimes which warrant particularly punitive sanction.
This issue was highlighted recently by Mr Justice Tony Hunt as he sentenced Josef Puska to life imprisonment for murdering Ashling Murphy in Tullamore.
Puska attacked his victim at random as she walked along the pathway of the Grand Canal outside the town.
Despite strong evidence, including Puska’s DNA found under the victim’s fingernails, he pleaded not guilty and a jury was asked to determine guilt or innocence.
The jury found Puska guilty. As Mr Justice Hunt imposed the mandatory sentence, he said it was long past time when Irish judges should have a say in the minimum term served.
The judge said that while every murder is grave, not every murder is the same. Those in court were left in no doubt that if he had the power, the judge would have imposed a lengthy minimum tariff on Josef Puska to accompany his mandatory ‘life’ sentence.
As things stand, Puska is entitled to begin engaging with the parole process once he has served 12 years in prison.
The Parole Act of 2019 states that every life sentence prisoner must serve 12 years in prison before seeking parole, where it had previously been seven years.
It is quite likely that Puska will serve much longer in prison than 12 years but the absence of a minimum tariff in life sentences in Ireland means it is not clear how much time he might serve, or if he ever might be released.
Judges have long expressed opinions on murder cases that come before them.
In March 2003, Mr Justice Barry White described the murder of Gráinne Dillon as the most vicious, brutal and callous murder he’d ever encountered.
He made those comments as he sentenced Paulo Nascimento to life imprisonment after he had pleaded guilty to the murder of Gráinne Dillon, a fellow worker at the Jurys Inn hotel in Limerick.
Nascimento had only been working at the hotel a few days when he used a stolen shotgun to rob €3,000. Gráinne was working in the restaurant area in the early hours of the morning when Nascimento struck.
“He had a shotgun, a single barrel shotgun,” Gráinne’s mother Pat told Prime Time.
“He shot her once, and then he frog-marched her out into a dry cupboard, a pantry area and shot her a second time. He then left her and went upstairs, changed his clothes and came down, got the shotgun again. Remember, he reloaded it, came down and shot a third time.”
Nascimento was a former soldier in the Portuguese army. On the day of his scheduled trial at the Central Criminal Court he suddenly pleaded guilty. This meant that only a short summation of the evidence was given before the automatic life sentence was handed down by the judge.
“I was furious,” recalled Gráinne’s sister Clíona. “I wanted the facts to come out as to how callous the murder had been, how prolonged Gráinne’s death was. Gráinne didn’t die instantly, Gráinne bled to death.”
“He had immobilised her after the first shot. He could have taken his €3,000 and left. I wanted everybody to know it wasn’t a spur of the moment killing, it wasn’t,” she told Prime Time.
The Dillon family soon discovered that their engagement with the Irish justice system would continue for decades.
Firstly, they successfully fought attempts by Nascimento to be allowed return to Portugal to serve his sentence.
Next, the Dillons discovered that Nascimento was entitled to apply for parole after seven years in jail.
Gráinne’s loved ones then found themselves writing to the Parole Board every two years objecting to attempts by Nascimento to be given release.
Nascimento is currently in Shelton Abbey Open Prison in Co Wicklow, having now served 22 years and almost 2 months in jail.
He is one of 380 life sentence prisoners in jail, but is getting occasional periods of release.
He was granted release last Christmas and is seeking further releases.
“As far as we are aware he has never expressed any remorse,” Clíona told Prime Time. “It’s hard to accept they are letting someone out who is not remorseful.
“He murdered my sister. Every one of my family’s lives, all our lives were affected by it and continue to be to this day. It’s all about the prisoner’s rights, but where’s Gráinne in all of this?”
“People do not realise that this does not end on the day someone is found guilty.”
Security Correspondent, Prime Time
In a compelling analysis originally by John Drennan for Irish News, a stark warning emerges about An Garda Síochána’s future. Nearly half of the force faces retirement by 2028, posing a significant threat to the government’s expansion plans. This scenario sees over 6,400 officers nearing retirement, highlighting the acute need for a more aggressive recruitment and retention strategy.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee reveals data pointing to a sharp increase in retirements. This situation demands an urgent and comprehensive recruitment plan. Amid this backdrop, Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan offers a forward-looking solution. He advocates for enhancing training facilities and tapping into the Garda Reserve to mitigate the impending manpower crunch.
O’Callaghan’s proactive measures spotlight the necessity for swift action to preserve the force’s strength and efficacy. He champions the expansion of training and recruitment to confront the looming shortage of Garda personnel head-on, underlining the importance of ensuring public safety through sustained force levels.
Key Insights and Actions:
Enhancing Gardaí Recruitment:
Immediate efforts to boost Gardaí numbers are vital. Incorporating O’Callaghan’s suggestions into policy could mark a turning point in addressing this critical challenge.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin is receiving calls to include more countries as “safe” in efforts to intensify the crackdown on illegal immigration. An EU document mentioned by backbencher Jim O’Callaghan at a confidential party meeting indicates that Ireland counts among the EU nations with the least number of countries considered safe.
Martin has promised his peers he will review the strategies of other EU nations before responding to the party.
A total of 16 countries within the EU recognize a larger number of countries as safe compared to Ireland. Countries at the forefront, like the Netherlands, which lists 33 countries, and Cyprus, with 29, outpace Ireland.
Ireland currently identifies ten countries as safe, with the Government having added two more recently.
The report from the EU Agency for Asylum reveals that only four states list fewer countries as safe than Ireland, with 22 member states now utilizing these safe country lists.
“Several other European countries maintain longer lists of countries they consider safe, and Ireland ought to contemplate adding more countries to its roster,”
Mr. O’Callaghan stated.
“This designation procedure is integral to the international protection framework and will aid in accelerating applications, thus ensuring those deserving of international protection can receive a favorable decision promptly.”
Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan has called for the terminus for Dublin’s MetroLink to be moved from Charlemont in the south city centre to Tara Street or St Stephen’s Green.
Mr O’Callaghan, who represents the Dublin Bay South constituency where three MetroLink stops will be located, said that while he is in favour of approval being granted in general terms by An Bord Pleanála, it is “unusual” for a major European city not to have a termination point between the airport and the city centre.
He was speaking during the second day of An Board Pleanála’s oral hearing into the MetroLink project.
Digital impression of the entrance to the proposed Charlemont Metrolink station. Photograph: Metrolink.ie
Location of planned terminus would have ‘severely detrimental impact’ on surrounding residential area, Jim O’Callaghan tells hearing
The proposed Charlemont Metrolink station should be axed and the line terminated in Dublin city centre, Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan told An Bord Pleanála’s hearing on the €9.5 billion underground rail project.
The 18.8km line, is planned to run from north of Swords to Dublin Airport, then on to Ballymun, Glasnevin, O’Connell Street and St Stephen’s Green before terminating at Charlemont, with 16 stations along the route.
Mr O’Callaghan said while it makes sense to link the airport with a central transport hub, Charlemont was not in the city centre, was outside the canal, and was a most “unusual hub”.
Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan has called for tougher sanctions against airlines that allow passengers into the State without having proper identification.
Figures provided to Deputy ‘Callaghan, left, in response to parliamentary queries show the Garda National Immigration Bureau issued 958 fines to passengers who failed to present proper ID to airlines in 2022.
A further 918 fines were issued last year up until the end of November: However, Justice Minister Helen McEntee refused to say how many airlines were fined for allowing passengers into the country.
Dubin Bay South TD Mr. ‘Callaghan warned:
“If this law is frequently being broken then the fines on airlines may need to be increased.”
Jim O’Callaghan TD, who received the data in answer to a parliamentary question, queried why the airlines breaching the law were not identified. Picture: Damien Storan/PA
Airlines arriving into Ireland have been fined more than €2.5m over the last two years over passengers failing to have valid travel documents upon arrival in the State.
New data released by the Department of Justice shows that there were 918 carrier liability fines issued up to the end of November last year, costing airlines a total of €1,476,000.