Judges may get more sentencing powers - Varadkar
JUSTICE Minister Helen McEntee is examining ways to increase life murder sentences in the wake of the Ashling Murphy murder trial, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said yesterday.
It comes after the Judge Tony Hunt called for judges to be given the authority to impose minimum terms for murder.
The judge made the comments as he handed down a life sentence to Ashling Murphy’s killer, Jozef Puska.
Sentencing the 33-year-old Slovakian national, he said he did not have the authority to impose a minimum period to serve, and if he did, he would have considered a whole of life term sentence in this case.
And he commented it is ‘long past time that judges should have some say in setting what the minimum terms should be’ in life sentences.
Judge Hunt added that current sentencing restrictions mean a life sentence is a ‘one size fits all’, but he added: ‘They [cases] are not all the same.’
Asked by the Irish Mail on Sunday if he agreed with judicial discretion on minimum sentences, Mr Varadkar, below, confirmed the Government are considering the move.
He told the MoS: ‘I’ve asked [Justice] Minister [Helen] McEntee to examine that. As you know Minister McEntee has already increased the maximum sentences that can be imposed on people for serious assault or the assault of an emergency worker during their work. It’s an area I asked her to consider. That wouldn’t mean a minimum sentence in all circumstances but would give a judge the power to impose a minimum sentence if the judge felt it appropriate.’
However, Mr Varadkar warned that: ‘If we plan to do this, if the public want dangerous people locked up for 40 years, it will have to be accompanied by a serious increase of up to 600 prison spaces.
‘There is a connected piece to this, and I know people don’t like to talk about it, but we do need to have adequate prison spaces. Not because I want to see a higher incarceration rate, I don’t, but if we’re genuinely serious about locking up very dangerous people – murderers, rapists, paedophiles, the heads of major criminal gangs – for 20, 30, 40 years and I think that’s what people want.
‘With the rising population, we’re going to need more prison spaces.’
He said Ms McEntee is ‘working on… providing an extra 600 prison spaces over the next couple of years’.
He said: ‘I’m sure I’ll be denounced by the righteous ones and various others for even suggesting this, but if people want to dangerous people locked up for a long time, we’re going to need more room in our prisons.’
In response to queries from the MoS, Ms McEntee confirmed: ‘A body of work and research has been done and there is a proposal that where a judge decides a crime is particularly heinous that person may have to serve for 20 or 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.’ Currently, prisoners convicted for murder become eligible for parole after 12 years.