On June 25th a bill giving more rights to victims of crime was rejected in the Dail by the Fianna Fail majority, without any good reason.
Arguments were advanced that this bill was “legislation by google” referencing the fact that the legislation drew strongly from similar New Zealand law. Yet all good and substantive legislation is enacted based on good research of the approach of other countries and the effectiveness thereof. This is apparently one of the reasons advanced for rejecting the bill and it concerns me, how does the Minister of Justice propose to draft his bill…. divine inspiration perhaps?
This is a prime example of party politics rather than politics for the people, crime victims rights is not a party political issue but rather an issue of concern for every person in our country. Crime does not discriminate and we all have the potential to become victims of crime.
Yet, the majority party would not allow the bill to proceed to committee stage, at which point any amendments which they deemed necessary could have been worked into the tabled legislation. Instead we now have to wait while they formulate their own bill, there is no definitive date at which we might expect this bill and it reeks of another political promise that without public pressure will take a long time coming to fruition.
It is a disappointment that the people we elect do not act on behalf of the best interests of their country but on the best interests of their party.
The only hope is that enough publicity will shame the government into bringing this much needed legislation into effect. Then they can bask in the glory of a bill that they hastily announced in a press conference less than a week before the Fine Gael bill was to go before the Dail. It is hard to believe that these school boy antics are at play when dealing with such a vulnerable group in our society.
It seems to me, the victims are not their priority because if they were this bill would be at committee stage and all parties would be working to bring in law which would be to the benefit of all.
