27 April 2006

Justice

Lowering the age of criminal responsibility

Ciarán Cuffe TD asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason for his decision to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 12 years of age to ten years of age, his views on whether his intention to do so will be in direct contravention of the Children Act 2001 and therefore an erosion of 30 years work in the part of groups and individuals concerned with child welfare issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. 

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell):  It is not correct to say that the age of criminal responsibility is being reduced from 12 years to 10 years of age.  The Children Act 2001 proposed to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 7 years to 12 years but, as the relevant section was never commenced, the age at present is still 7 years.  Two problems were encountered in raising the age as envisaged in the 2001 Act.  First, because the common law meaning of the age of criminal responsibility is the age of capacity to commit an offence, the offence per se is not available as a ground for intervention in relation to the child.  In practical terms this means that there could be no meaningful Garda intervention with children below the age of criminal responsibility, even where such children did not require the services of the Health Service Executive.  Second, the original proposal in the 2001 Act would have given 10 and 11 year old children total immunity to being dealt with for the most serious offences on the statute book. 

The amendments to the 2001 Act proposed for inclusion in the Criminal Justice Bill satisfactorily overcome both the problems I have outlined in a fair and balanced way that means that for all practical purposes the age of criminal responsibility is being raised to 12 years.  By making these changes to the 2001 Act, it has been possible to provide a commencement provision automatically bringing the relevant amendments to that Act into operation 3 months after the enactment of the Criminal Justice Bill.