Before the small but nonetheless significant interruption of the Minister for Justice—it is significant of the mentality which it portrays—I was about to say that, to put it no more strongly, there is no reason to believe that the members of the Judiciary here, established under the Constitution of Ireland, are in any way enamoured by section 11. Indeed, quite a number of them are very much opposed to the proposals in that section in so far as this will compel in any given case three of their number to travel to Northern Ireland or the six counties of Ireland which comprise Northern Ireland for the purpose of listening to evidence being taken by a commissioner from the High Court in Northern Ireland. The willingness or otherwise of judges to risk their lives—that is what it amounts to—in going to Northern Ireland in these circumstances is a very relevant factor in considering the whole feasibility of this section and of the procedure which it proposes.
The recent history of Northern Ireland in relation to judges and their safety is well known. In recent years three judges have been murdered in Northern Ireland because they were judges. They were Northern Ireland judges but there is no reason to believe that judges from this part of the country would enjoy any greater degree of immunity from violence than the Northern Ireland judges. It might be argued that there might be reason to believe that judges going from the South to Northern Ireland in the particular circumstances of this Bill and this section might enjoy considerably less immunity than the resident judges in Northern Ireland have enjoyed in recent years. I do not think that can be denied.
We have to face the stark reality that if the judges for the time being of the Special Court down here travel to Northern Ireland they will travel in circumstances in which their lives will be in some danger at least. I do not know if they are prepared in those circumstances to travel. I understand they have not been consulted about this question. I presume it will be suggested by the Minister that the RUC will arrange to give them protection. I assume that over recent years, because of continuous attacks on judges in Northern Ireland, the RUC were endeavouring to the best of their ability to protect judges in Northern Ireland but still three of them are dead. I do not think the RUC are in a position to guarantee the safety of judges from here who travel up there. In those circumstances I think it is not unreasonable of our Judiciary here to be extremely apprehensive about what is in store for them under the section and to be extremely doubtful about the advisability of the section or its practicality. I am not encouraging our judges not to travel and I do not want to be accused of that by the Minister. What I am saying is that, normal human prudence being what it is, there will not be too many volunteers, if any at all, from our Judiciary to undertake the task that would be set out for them under section 11. If there are not too many volunteers for it, how does the Minister propose to operate the section?
An appallingly onerous provision of this kind on our Judiciary should not have been put in a Bill introduced into the Oireachtas without the fullest consultation in advance by the Minister with the Judiciary and, in particular, with the members who are currently in the Special Criminal Court. It is normal practice for a Minister for Justice, if he is introducing legislation in the Oireachtas which affects the Judiciary in any way, to have consultations with them or at least with their senior representatives, such as the Chief Justice, the President of the High Court and the President of the Circuit Court, as might be appropriate. One does have and I have had such consultations many times in relation to matters of no great importance and certainly not of great importance by comparision with the provisions of section 11 here.
While I am sure the present Minister and I and our predecessors, including Deputy Haughey here beside me, had many consultations with the Judiciary during our respective terms of office about matters of comparatively little consequence, it is startling that, in this matter which is of tremendous fundamental importance to the judges concerned on the Minister's own admission, there was no prior consultation and, as far as one can ascertain, no subsequent consultation either.
If the members of our Judiciary concerned were to express their apprehension and their anxiety about the provisions of this section and were to express their anxiety not to have to travel to Northern Ireland in these circumstances, that would be perfectly understandable, and it would not be open to the Minister or to anyone else in this House or outside it to express any criticism of them for having that apprehension. If it happens, therefore, that our judges or a significant number of them are not willing to travel in these circumstances, where inevitably their very lives must be put in danger, how is it expected that this section can operate, and if this section cannot operate, how is it expected that this Bill as a whole can operate?
To my mind, that is one of the fundamental practical weaknesses of this Bill and the scheme that is proposed under it. No matter how worthy the motives or alleged motives of the Government in relation to the whole question of terrorism may be, if there is a fundamental impracticality about the method proposed—and I believe there is and that I have demonstrated it— then all of this debate in this House and the other House is just so much waste of time, because, with this fundamental problem, it is very hard to see the whole scheme being brought into operation.
When this Bill was originally published and when this party considered it, we made comments on what we thought was its general impracticality. One of the reasons for that is the reason I have just dealt with here now. There are other reasons why we believe it is impracticable. We compared it—and at the time our spokesman was Deputy Andrews—with the action of the Government in December, 1973, making an order under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, making murder committed in Northern Ireland triable down here. At the time Deputy Andrews said that although this provision was welcome so far as it went and was laudable in its intent, and was announced with a fanfare of trumpets by the Government as being something of great significance, we believe that that provision in December, 1973, would have little effect, and that it was likely that a few years later nobody would have been convicted under it.
We are now two years and three months later. Not alone has Deputy Andrews's forecast about the impracticality of that provision been proved right; not alone has nobody been convicted under it, but nobody has even been charged under it. If there are fugitives down here, as is alleged, who have committed serious crimes in Northern Ireland—which I do not believe for reasons that I dealt with on Second Stage—then many of those alleged fugitives must have committed or allegedly committed the crime of murder, because God knows there have been enough murders in Northern Ireland over the past six years, something in the region of 1,400, if I am not mistaken. Provision has always been there, but it is specifically there since December, 1973, to try those people for all these murders. The only difference between the provision in December, 1973, and this Bill is that murder is just one of a large category in this Bill, but murder is, tragically, one of the most common offences or crimes in Northern Ireland in the context in which we are speaking now, 1,400 of them. If nobody could have been charged with murder down here allegedly committed in Northern Ireland in two years and three months, how many others are going to be charged under this Bill?
I said on Second Stage that the most effective piece of legislation passed in this House in relation to these present problems with which the country is beset is section 3 of the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act, 1972, and the reason that I believe there are few if any fugitives down here from Northern Ireland is that in the case of a great many of them, if they do come down here, they can be charged with membership of an illegal organisation——