Wipe criminal records at age 25, report will suggest

Young people’s criminal records should be wiped when they reach the age of 25, the former chair of the Workplace Relations Commission has said.

According to The Irish Times, Kieran Mulvey will make the recommendation in a Government-commissioned report to be submitted next week.

However, lawyers have expressed concern over the implications of the policy, which would be aimed at improving access to employment for young people who get in trouble with the law.

The report will state: “We have to believe errors committed in youth can be forgotten and overcome. We have to help people into employment and not condemn them to repeated visits to Mountjoy.”

Dublin-based employment solicitor Richard Grogan told Irish Legal News that the proposed policy would “effectively be a licence for people up to the age of 25 to commit whatever crime they wished knowing it would be deleted from their criminal record”.

He added: “It is one thing to assist individuals in getting employment. It is entirely different than having a situation where effectively even a person who had no intention of ever looking for work would know that when they came to 25, all their criminal records will be deleted.

“In my opinion this is one of the most hare-brained schemes I have ever heard about. Luckily, it is a kite which will not fly - and the particular proposal should, in my opinion, be consigned to the rubbish bin.”