Tougher sentences for domestic violence and organised and serious crime come into force today.
The Criminal Justice Miscellaneous Provisions Act also introduces longer sentences for people convicted of assaulting Gardaí and other emergency services personnel on duty and creates a new stand-alone offence of stalking.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the new legislation was part of the government’s policy to tackle domestic, sexual, gender-based and gang-related violence.
The maximum sentence for assault causing harm has been doubled from five to ten years.
The scope of the existing offence of harassment has been widened to include any behaviour that seriously disturbs a person’s peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm.
A new separate offence of stalking has been introduced into the law with a maximum penalty of up to ten years, with similar penalties for the separate offence of non-fatal strangulation or suffocation.
There is now a maximum sentence of up to life imprisonment for non-fatal strangulation or suffocation causing serious harm.
Minister McEntee said that these offences are often indicators of further, potentially lethal violence against a woman.
The maximum sentence for assaulting Gardaí or other emergency services personnel on duty has been increased from seven to 12 years, while the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder, usually prosecuted in gang-related cases, has been increased to life imprisonment.
The maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder will be increased from the current ten years to life imprisonment to further toughen the laws around gang crime.