‘Ireland an outlier’ for serving life sentences on children, expert says 

The theme of the webinar is ‘Principled approaches to sentencing children and young people for murder — lessons from global litigation’.

It is being held following a landmark Supreme Court decision in March that life sentences where a child is convicted of murder should only be imposed in exceptional cases.

The ruling added that the evidence should show the intentions and actions of the child were the same as those of an adult.

In November, the Court of Appeal will resentence two offenders who were both sentenced to life in detention when under the age of 18.

Both are now adults. At the times of their sentencing — one for the murder of Cameron Blair in Cork and the other for the murder of Mongolian national Urantsetseg Tserendorj in Dublin — the presiding judges ordered reviews of their sentences after 13 years had been served.

Mr Blair, a native of Ballinascarthy and a student at then Cork Institute of Technology, died after being stabbed in the neck at a house party on Bandon Rd in Cork City on January 16, 2020.

Ms Tserendorj was stabbed in the neck on a walkway between George’s Dock and Custom House Quay in the IFSC, Dublin, on January 20, 2021, and was declared dead nine days later, on the evening of January 29.

Ms Lynch, who worked for many years in New Zealand, said she gave expert evidence in a similar case there involving three young offenders who had each been convicted of murder.

The New Zealand ruling, which was considered ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling in March, was that the life sentence was “manifestly unjust” in the three situations, substituting a determinate term with a significantly shorter minimum period to be served.

Ms Lynch said: “I would say that Ireland is totally out of step with other EU jurisdictions. The UK does allow the use of life sentences but other EU jurisdictions don’t.

I have done a lot of work with a Dutch colleague on this. The life sentence is not available in Holland and the sentences would be fixed depending on the age and culpability. That would be the case across Europe. 

There are differences obviously between jurisdictions but Ireland would be an outlier.”

She said life sentences for children “seem to be retained in the common-law jurisdictions, so in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, whereas the civil law jurisdictions either didn’t have it or have moved away from it”.

Ms Lynch believes Ireland’s law in the area is unclear and it should be resolved through legislation.

She added: “Public safety is obviously a very important part of sentencing. We know when young people go into custody, particularly then when they are transferred into adult custody, that the rehabilitation prospects aren’t great.

“That should be our priority driver in making sure a young person is reintegrated and public safety is protected. There needs to be a proper legislative process, where up to now it has been common law, and we have seen that the law is quite uncertain.”