Human rights group hits out at Fine Gael tagging plan

CONTROVERSIAL Fine Gael plans to electronically tag serious crime suspects who are out on bail were last night branded unconstitutional by human rights campaigners.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) hit out at the initiative, saying it would not stand up to legal challenge and would divert garda resources from frontline policing.

The proposal was unveiled at Fine Gael’s Árd Fheis by party leader Enda Kenny as he set out a raft of tough law and order measures.

However, civil liberties campaigners called the idea counterproductive and constitutionally dubious.

An ICCL spokeswoman said. “We would not be supportive of a move to introduce electronic tagging on the grounds that studies have shown that it is not an effective deterrent, that it is very expensive and labour intensive at a time when resources could be better deployed in other priority areas and that 24-hour monitoring is an invasion of privacy.

“We have also stated that using electronic tagging as a condition of bail would not stand the legal or constitutional test,” the spokeswoman added.

Mr Kenny said tagging people who were later found to be innocent would be a “price worth paying”.

Fine Gael’s justice spokesman, Jim O’Keeffe, insisted that radical action was necessary as in the past two years, 11,000 serious crimes were committed by people on bail, including 43 homicides, 500 assaults and 750 drug offences.

“I do not believe it is unconstitutional at all. When a judge decides bail at the moment, he can impose certain conditions, such as whether someone needs to surrender their passport, or report to a garda station, or live in a certain area. We have taken advice on this from constitutional lawyers and I do not believe it will be a problem,” he said.

“It will also not take away from frontline resources either as it will be an add-on to the tagging of released prisoners. I envisage this will be done by an outside firm and gardaí would only be involved if there was a breach of the conditions.”

Fine Gael has also raised eyebrows in the legal profession with the plan to ensure the “voice of the people” is heard when judges hand down sentences.

The party proposes the Oireachtas should set minimum and maximum sentences for serious offences as a “guideline” and judges would have to publicly explain their reasons if they deviated from them.

The idea received a frosty response from the Law Society, which pointed out that judges must weigh up the merits of individual cases.

But Mr O’Keeffe said Ireland was one of the few English-speaking countries operating common law which does not have such tariffs.

“This would help ensure consistency in sentencing as at the moment the only consistency in that area is the inconsistency,” he said.