Mr. John O'Donoghue T.D., Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform today announced the membership of the Parole Board which, as previously indicated, he proposes to establish on an administrative basis initially pending statutory provision in due course.
The membership of the interim Board is as follows:
- Mr. Gordon Holmes, Holmes O'Malley Sexton, Solicitors, Limerick (Chairperson)
- Ms. Lillian McGovern, Chief Executive of Victim Support
- Ms. Daisy O'Reilly, Member of Board of Management of Harristown House, Castlerea
- Mr. Tim O'Donoghue, Project Manager, Kerry Diocesan Youth Service Project
- Mr. Martin Tansey, Principal Probation and Welfare Officer, Probation and Welfare Service
- Dr. Charles Smith, Director, Central Mental Hospital
- Ms. Anne O'Gorman, Principal Officer, Prisons and Probation and Welfare Policy Division, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform
- Mr. John Kenny, Principal Officer, Irish Prisons Service
- Mr. Frank McCarthy, Governor, Cork Prison
The Parole Board, when operational, will replace the Sentence Review Group which is a non-statutory body set up in 1989 to review the cases of long-term prisoners (excluding cases of capital murder) after 7 years of sentence had been served and to make recommendations to the Minister. The Board, which will be advisory in nature with the final decision continuing to rest with the Minister, will review cases of eligible prisoners serving determinate sentences of more than 8 years but less than 14 years at the half of sentence stage and, in the cases of prisoners serving sentences of 14 years or more or life sentences, after 7 years had been served of the sentence.
It is expected that the Board will be operational in the coming months when its staff and new premises are put in place. The premises of the Board will be located outside the Department and the Prison Service. Civil servants from the Civil Service generally will be seconded to the Board to act as its secretariat.
Minister O'Donoghue said that "the establishment of the Parole Board is in line with other initiatives taken in relation to effective sentence management to promote community safety side by side with efforts towards the rehabilitation and resettlement of individual offenders:-
- establishment of an independent Prisons Authority with its own Board and Chief Executive;
- significant expansion of cellular accommodation to successfully tackle the so-called revolving door in the prison system which did so much under the previous Rainbow Coalition Government to bring the entire criminal justice system into disrepute;
- Sex Offenders Bill 2001 which provides for a major package of innovative reforms designed to protect the public against sex offenders including new system of post-release (from prison) supervision for sex offenders;
- Criminal Justice (Temporary Release of Prisoners) Bill 2001 which will set out a clear legislative basis for the Minister's power to grant temporary release by setting down the principles which will apply to the exercise of this power".
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