Criminal Justice Bill, 1983: Report Stage.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Amendment No. 1 is in the name of Deputies Mac Giolla and De Rossa. Amendment Nos. 2 and 7 are related. Is it agreed that the House should discuss amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 7 together?

In page 3, line 11, to delete "Act", and substitute "Act, but no section of this Act shall come into operation, prior to the making of regulations by the Minister for Justice, as specified in section 27".

Regulations under section 27 refer to the electronic recording of interviews in Garda stations of persons detained under section 4. On Committee Stage I argued that electronic recordings should be introduced immediately but the Minister pointed out that it was not possible to do this for practical reasons. Subsequently I suggested that in that case the recording should be taken by a stenographer or by some person using longhand or in whatever way it could be done manually but the Minister indicated there were some practical problems, probably mostly of a financial nature, that would make that impracticable also. In view of the fact that section 4 relates to the detention of persons and that it is a fairly serious erosion of and limitation on the rights of an individual and because there is a necessity to assure the general public that there can be no possible abuse of the powers contained in this Bill, I would argue that it should not come into effect until electronic recording facilities are available in Garda stations to which people would be brought for questioning.

I have strong reservations about many sections of the Bill and I have gone into them in detail on Committee Stage. In particular, I am not convinced regarding section 4 and some other sections that we will deal with in the course of this debate. Just as the sections will not come into effect until a complaints procedure is introduced, neither should they be brought into effect until an electronic recording system is available. I notice from reports in the British papers that a case was heard recently in that country where electronic recording was used as evidence and it was considered to be a successful use of the system. I understand it is intended to extend the use of this system in Britain. I am fairly certain there is considerable advancement in the area of electronic recordings during interrogations and, therefore, acceptance of this amendment should not delay unduly the introduction of the Bill.

Dr. Woods

Amendment No. 1, which is one of the three amendments we are considering now, refers to the making of regulations as specified in section 27. We must give the Minister due credit for bringing in a positive amendment which we shall deal with later. This will mean that the regulations can be brought before the House to be discussed and agreed. I welcome the fact that the Minister has taken that step which he promised on Committee Stage. In any event, the question still remains. We are going to pass the Report Stage of the Bill today but, in doing so, we will not have seen the regulations.

The Minister has also said that certain parts of the Bill will not come into operation until the regulations are approved, but the regulations should have been before us earlier. We have been discussing this Bill for a long time and they have had ample opportunity to introduce them. Various proposals and suggestions in relation to safeguards which would be desirable were put forward by me as spokesman for the Opposition and by other Members of the House in their contributions. It was very interesting to see on the television programme "Panorama" on BBC television that the safeguards which we were talking about here were those which are relevant to the situation in Britain. I was also very interested to note that they spoke of the removal of the watch from detained persons. I had made the point that its removal could result in the person being disorientated and not knowing where they are or what time of the day or night it is. They mentioned on the programme that the only item which was returned was a handkerchief, but one could inflict injury by swallowing a handkerchief as well as a watch. It was very interesting to get an insight into the operation of similar legislation although, as the Minister said, detention periods are much longer in Britain. It emphasised the validity of the arguments we were making here in relation to the importance of safeguards.

The Minister promised safeguards in the regulations to be introduced. When these safeguards apply juries will be more influenced by the reliability of evidence, so it is not just a question of ensuring that people are protected but also that proper procedures are complied with which will result in convictions where convictions should be obtained. Juries will feel confident in relying on the evidence put before them as a result of the safeguards. Cases have occurred where a note was not made and signed in relation to what somebody said when charged. The omission of a work can be crucial. Perhaps somebody said "I was not the only one there" and later on he might say "I was not the one there". This arises in relation to information which must be given and inferences which can be drawn from such information. If there are not proper safeguards and accurate notes taken they will be in contest later in the courts and there will be lengthy legal arguments as to what was said.

The same applies to many instances raised on Committee Stage, which was very comprehensive. When informing the person at the time of his arrest of the offence or offences for which he is being arrested and the time of his arrest it is very important to provide a minimal note. Deputy De Rossa mentioned the possibility of introducing recording by electronic or other means. The programme to which I have already referred, mentioned the recording system and that there did not seem to be any difficulty with it. I am sure the Minister will look at its use in Britain before he completes his regulations in that respect and that the committee which he set up to look at electronic or other means of recording will do likewise. We see the safeguards as an integral part of the Bill. We accept that they will come before the House but they should have been available when the Bill was going through the House. Their omission is very bad organisation on the part of the Minister and the Department, because there is no real reason for not having them before the House. I accept the Minister's undertaking and recognise that he has given the amendment which he promised on Committee Stage.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 7 are related. Amendment No. 2 says:

Notwithstanding the generality of subsection (1) of this Section, no order shall be made by the Minister bringing into operation Sections 4 to 6, 8 to 10, 15, 16, 18 or 19, on a day earlier than a day on which a Garda Síochána Complaints Commission is established by statute.

Amendment No. 7 is in the area of the Bill which deals with interpretation of the words "Garda Síochána Complaints Commission". It says:

`Garda Síochána Complaints Commission' means an independent body, irrespective of name or title, established by statute for the purpose of investigating complaints against members of the Garda Síochána.

A complaints commission was promised in conjunction with the Bill in the memorandum published in October 1983. The memorandum initially promised a complaints procedure and said that those provisions of the Bill giving increased powers to the Garda Síochána and which will come into operation only when a ministerial order to that effect is made will not be brought into force until a complaints procedure involving an assessment by an independent person or tribunal has been established. We still have no complaints procedure although it cannot be that difficult to establish it. It was promised when the memorandum was circulated with the Bill last October and it was promised again on Second Stage and on Committee Stage. In reply to a question I asked on 8 March 1984 and a related question from Deputy Mac Giolla, the Minister said that the new procedure would not be brought into operation until both Houses of the Oireachtas had an opportunity to discuss it. He went on to say that he expected to be in a position to inform the House of the proposals in the near future and that the indications were that the scheme would be a statutory one.

We were reasonably happy that the Minister was proceeding with the complaints procedure and that it would be before the House in the near future. There were various exchanges across the House as to whether this procedure would be before the House while the Committee Stage was still on, at the end of the Committee Stage or whenever. We are now on the Report Stage but we still have not seen the complaints procedure. We accept what the Minister said and what is in the explanatory memorandum, that this procedure will prevent the implementation of certain sections of the Bill. I would like to hear what exactly the Minister has in mind as regards the complaints procedure.

We went to considerable trouble to put together a draft Garda Síochána complaints commission giving the procedures, definitions, establishment date, establishment and functions, how the commission would operate, who would make decisions, the different levels of decisions and how they would be handled, appointments, reports, requirements for reports and so on. The full processing of complaints was set out in a draft complaints procedure which was submitted some months ago when we put down the first amendments for Committee Stage. This involved seven or eight pages of amendments.

The Minister cannot say we have not tried to be helpful. We have given him draft views for discussion and consideration but in our view by this stage the complaints procedure should be before the House. We read in the newspapers that the Minister had circulated details of a proposed draft Garda complaints body — some aspects of that body were similar to those proposed in our submission — but so far we have not seen anything although the people in the media were supplied with this information. When I asked the Minister if this leak had been from his Department, or why this information had been leaked to the press but not brought before the House, he said the information did not come from him. I accept that but the document originated in the Department and therefore the information must have come from somebody who received the document from the Minister. It is unfair that this document has been circulated outside this House but we have not yet seen what the Minister intends in this area.

Naturally one becomes suspicious when one considers that there has been so much time to bring forward a complaints procedure but it is still not before us today when we are dealing with the Report Stage. The reason may be that the Members would not be entirely satisfied with the kind of complaints procedure which will be put before the House, but we do not know that. We will have to wait and see. It is very hard to fathom why it is not possible to bring a complaints procedure before the House or to circulate the draft procedure which has been circulated outside the House.

We have put down this amendment so that the Minister's intentions will be formally written into the Bill. If this is in the Bill, it will be absolutely no matter who is the Minister of the day.

Mr. Mac Giolla

We believe the taping of the interview to be of considerable assistance both to the Garda and the accused. Even without the new periods of detention in the Bill, there are frequent complaints — I do not know if they are justified or unjustified — about young people being brought into Garda stations, what was done, what was said and how they were treated. Usually after a week these complaints are not pursued because of the difficulties involved, but in cases that come to court there are frequent disputes in court over what was said, what was meant by what was said and so on. On the question of evidence, it would be of assistance if the new system were in operation.

From the point of view of the protection of the Garda, if there is a new, longer detention period during which the suspected person may be interviewed, there will be an increase in the number of complaints and in suggestions that the Garda are doing more than asking questions. It is possible from what the Minister said on Committee Stage that a long period would elapse before the system would be introduced in many Garda stations unless there is pressure on the Department. I gather from the Minister's statement on Committee Stage that it could be between one and five years before this would be introduced. Of course if the Bill does not put pressure on the Minister to have it introduced it could be delayed for four or five years. If pressure is put on the Department, the Minister and the Government, and if financial provision is made for its implementation it could be brought in within six months, or at the outside 12 months. For those reasons it is necessary to provide the pressure in the Bill.

When people are brought in for questioning, problems will arise in relation to certain stations here and there throughout the country, and even from the point of view of the Garda it would be desirable that the protection which the amendment would provide would be there from the beginning. Without electronic equipment there would be great difficulty proving that allegations were without foundation. We believe this section to be of great importance for the entire operation of the Act and for its acceptance by the community. This procedure should have been prepared before the Bill was introduced. It would lead to more community involvement and more co-operation between the community and the Garda. As it stands, the Bill will tend rather to widen the gap. Therefore we ask the Minister to accept the amendment.

Mr. O'Dea

I welcome the amendment. It is essential that we should see the shape and form of the regulations before passing the Bill. On several occasions the Minister voiced the opinion that there is a serious crime problem and that the Bill must respond to that. Though I disagree with the Minister about the response this Bill will provide, he is entitled to his opinion.

Continuously in the House the Minister has agreed that the Bill represents a diminution of civil liberties, and therefore the need for necessary safeguards for civil liberties must be recognised. The provision of these regulations before the passing of the Bill would ensure that the Act will be properly balanced. Earlier I used the analogy of the Minister for Finance coming in here and saying that the net take from wages through PAYE had increased due to inflation and that the allowances would be increased correspondingly, but not telling the House what the increased allowances would be. The equation should be balanced from the point of view of both sides, and therefore on this occasion the Minister should show us the other side before we pass this legislation.

Surely it is not beyond the powers and the wit of the civil service to come up with these regulations which in this case will represent the other side of the equation. Without seeing the regulations we are being asked to pass the Bill into law, and that is unequal.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Noonan,

Limerick East): There is a misunderstanding about the nature of amendment No. 1. The misunderstanding has been illustrated by Deputy O'Dea. This amendment relates to the regulations to be made under section 27 for the electronic recording of interviews, but it does not refer to the general regulations to which I have committed myself in regard to the treatment of people in custody. Therefore, it is not relevant to discuss the regulations in general on this amendment, which confines itself to the enabling power of the Minister to bring in regulations to have interviews recorded.

Dr. Woods

It is a legitimate opportunity.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): It is an opportunity, legitimate or otherwise. This amendment would have the effect that none of the provisions of the Bill could come into operation until regulations providing for a system of electronic recording of questioning had been introduced pursuant to the powers conferred on the Minister by section 27. This would mean that the entire Bill would be suspended until a system of electronic recording had been introduced on a national basis. We could not even have the sections introducing simplified procedures for proving matters in court which are designed to speed up court hearings and reduce costs and which have been widely welcomed. We could not have any of the many other provisions that have absolutely no bearing on electronic recording of questioning.

I am afraid I cannot accept this amendment. It is far too widely drawn, but even if Deputies MacGiolla and De Rossa were prepared to narrow the scope of it by confining it to, for example, the detention provisions, I would still not be prepared to accept it for reasons that I made very clear on Committee Stage.

Many of the provisions of this Bill are urgently needed to deal with the serious crime problem we have. Indeed many people regard the Bill as long overdue — it was promised by a number of successive Governments of recent years. Electronic recording — I will refer to it as tape recording but it covers both audio and video — cannot be introduced overnight for reasons that I explained in great detail to the House on Committee Stage. We were discussing it at 2 o'clock on the morning of 22 June, so I remember it well. Therefore, Deputies may not have heard my views clearly. I do not intend to repeat now all that I said then — Deputies can read the debate in Volume 352, No. 2 of the Official Report, starting at column 245 — but in resumé my reasons for not agreeing to this amendment are that we need the Bill now but can only have tape recording after we have carried out proper trials to evaluate it and to ascertain how best it should be introduced.

As I said — I communicated this to the Dáil — I have a committee working on this and they are proceeding with all possible speed, but until section 4 comes into operation, the field trials cannot be carried out because, apart from section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, there is no legal power to detain suspects in Garda stations under existing law. The intention is that the field trials will start when section 4 becomes operative. Therefore, even if I were otherwise disposed to this amendment, I could not accept it for that reason alone because I would be cutting the ground completely from under any field trials I could organise.

With regard to the amendments tabled by Deputy Woods I should like to state that this question was discussed very fully on Committee Stage. The effect of Deputy Woods' amendment would be to ensure that pending the establishment of a Garda Síochána Complaints Commission the specified sections of the Bill should not be brought into operation. Essentially, we are talking about the detention provisions and those dealing with the withholding of information and inferences from silence. There were lengthy contributions by Deputies on all sides on the complaints procedure on Second Stage and again on Committee Stage on Deputy Woods' amendment. I refer Deputies to No. 27A in Volume 351, columns 428-443 of the Official Report. That amendment proposed that the then sections 3 to 8 detention should not come into operation until a complaints commission was set up.

On Committee Stage I opposed the amendment on the basis that I had given a commitment already and there was not any need to write it into the Bill. In withdrawing the amendment Dr. Woods said:

We must rely on the Minister to carry out his promise. On that basis I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.

What he has done now is to reintroduce it and to add new sections to it. The reason for refusing to accept it now is that the Government have given a commitment to have an independent procedure and made an announcement on publication of the Bill that the new Garda powers would not come into force until the complaints procedure was in operation. I repeated that commitment in the Dáil.

At various stages during the debate on the Bill I stated that the previous administration were not committed to such a procedure and did not have work done on it. It therefore was a question of starting the serious work on it and putting it through with all possible speed. There is no doubt that I do not expect to go through my time in the House, or through politics or through this ministry without a lot of criticism. A legitimate form of criticism is a Minister dragging his feet or delaying certain things, but that is not legitimate when it is applied to civil servants, and I would like Deputies to appreciate what the civil servants in my Department are trying to do in this regard. For example, the amendments from Dr. Woods were communicated to my Department at 5 o'clock yesterday evening with the result that those involved with the Bill had to work until 4 o'clock this morning evaluating them.

Mr. D. Andrews

So what? That is what they are paid for.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): A very small group of people deal with this area. Those dealing with the Bill are also involved in the complaints procedure and the regulations. As the House in its wisdom decided to have a very extensive Committee Stage debate the civil servants involved were present to listen to the debate, noting the points made and responding with amendments. I am not criticising the House. We had a very constructive Committee Stage debate, but Deputies must remember that if time is given in one direction it is taken off somewhere else. Notwithstanding that the Bill dealing with complaints is proceeding. The informal second draft of the Bill runs to 92 pages. It went through Government and the Government have decided that the Attorney General's office would give it priority for drafting. A resume of the main provisions was communicated to the Garda associations, who sought time to discuss the complaints procedure and respond to it. Nominated members of the four associations met jointly and decided to produce an agreed unanimous response to my proposals. We received that last night. The joint response is fairly extensive. Officials from my Department are meeting Garda representatives tomorrow to discuss what are, in effect, their objections to certain parts of our proposals.

I do not think it would be proper for me as Minister to give the House an initial discussion document. The proper procedure is to get what agreement I can and then make a decision and return to the House with a Bill. The House will be able to debate the Bill through all Stages, as had been the case with the Bill under discussion. Initially, there was a question of whether the complaints procedure would be an administrative scheme or a statutory one, but having heard the views of Deputies on Second Stage and having given it further consideration we decided it should be a statutory scheme. Of course going down the statutory road lengthens the procedure. It would have been easier to bring in an administrative scheme. It is easier for a Minister to draw up guidelines, announce them publicly and communicate them by way of advertisement to the public. Now we are going down a road that involves the detailed drafting of a Bill. Any former Minister — there are a number of them present — who has been involved in the preparation of legislation recognises that it is a slow process. As well as the process being slow it must be remembered that there is an obligation on me to evaluate the proposed procedure in detail, to obtain the views of the Garda associations and consult with them on it before I introduce the Bill. Those associations will not have a veto over my proposals. However, it is certainly desirable that we get the maximum agreement to our proposals.

On the question of electronic recording, the committee I referred to on 22 June visited London and Aberdeen where they saw field trials in operation. They are familiar with what is happening in Britain. I am sure it will be of benefit that pilot schemes are in operation there. We can draw from their experiences.

On the question of the general regulations — they are not referred to in the amendment but because they were raised I should like to make a general reference to them — I should like to tell the House that they will be extremely detailed. A first draft has been prepared and, again, consultations are proceeding. The draftsman must be asked to draft them again. It is as difficult to draft regulations as it is to draft a Bill because the regulations are also statutory. As I pointed out on Committee Stage, we are not talking about having two classes of law. The statutory effect of the regulations will be on a par with the statutory effect of the provisions in the Bill. The draft regulations must, consequently be prepared very carefully.

I have given commitments to the House — I thought the House accepted them on Committee Stage and I ask the House to accept them again — on the complaints procedure. The detention and related sections of the Bill will not be introduced until both Houses show themselves satisfied by passing the Bill with the complaints procedure.

On the question of regulations I have told the House that I will not implement the detention section until there are statutory regulations on the treatment of persons in custody. I intend to keep that commitment.

On the question of regulations under section 27, which is the target of the amendment tabled by Deputies Mac Giolla and De Rossa, I explained on Committee Stage that I cannot suspend the whole Bill until electronic recording is implemented nationally because the necessary preliminary work has not been done. The committee was set up before the Bill was published. That committee has already taken into account the experiences in England and Scotland. There will also be a lot to be learned from what happens in certain states in America and Canada because video recording is used there. Pilot schemes will have to be set up, but I must repeat that to set up pilot schemes on electronic recording section 3 will have to be in operation. Otherwise the pilot schemes would have to be run on the basis of section 30 detentions under the Offences Against the State Act. I am not prepared to use section 30 detentions as a basis for pilot schemes, for a number of reasons, one of them being the time involved — 24 hours initially with the possibility of extending that for a further 24 hours. I ask the House to accept what I said on Committee Stage, and that the limited number of officials in my Department are working very hard to try to fulfil the commitments made in the shortest possible time.

Mr. D. Andrews

The Minister has mentioned the hard work he and his civil servants are doing in relation to the Bill. Naturally those of us who have any concern about civil servants are sympathetic about their working until 4 o'clock in the morning on amendments given to them by the Opposition. The Minister is quite right to point out that this happened and we are saying that it should not have happened. Our argument about the taking of the Report Stage has been crystallised by the Minister. He says that the amendments were drafted in haste and given to the civil servants. I have no doubt that they were very deliberately considered by the Minister's estimable civil servants. We had asked that the taking of the Report Stage be deferred a little longer.

The Opposition spokesman on Justice called a meeting of those of us concerned about this Bill at 3 o'clock on Monday last to consider the Minister's amendments. I received a copy of those amendments before the weekend, and for that I was grateful. The Minister has to look at the constraints placed on the Opposition by virtue of the time limit. I pay tribute to Deputy Woods for calling this meeting last Monday. Our discussions continued hour after hour in a rather second-class room in this House. We had absolutely no back-up service, and this is a criticism of the facilities available to Opposition parties when considering technical Bills of this nature. We met in a room in the first floor of the new extension which was in second-class condition. We went through the Bill deliberately and thoroughly and drafted rough sketches of desirable amendments. We are not criminal lawyers, and we had to give them to people who were helping us. Then the Opposition spokesman had to consider them again and he was discussing and considering the Bill until the early hours of this morning. Of course we are sorry for the civil servants who have to stay up until 4 a.m. The Minister has the civil service at his back but the Opposition have very little guidance or assistance, and this is a matter which should be considered by this Government or some other Government. We have made a very good contribution on this Bill, in spite of the defects of the back-up service available to us. When technical Bills come before us in the future there should be more advisers available to the Opposition.

The Minister has already indicated that the question of electronic devices and their usage must be given deep consideration and that a committee is looking into the whole question. There is much merit in the Workers' Party amendment, but the Bill cannot be held up because of section 27 and this side of the House cannot support that amendment, however well-intentioned.

There was an unfortunate row on Committee Stage regarding the Garda complaints procedure. The constitution of the Garda Síochána Complaints Commission should be available for discussion during this debate. My opinion is that we will have to support amendment No. 2 through the division lobby. I would hope that our spokesman would contest the right to discuss the complaints commission now rather than later.

We are being asked to take much of this Bill on trust. I have already suggested that it will cause more problems for the Garda and will be difficult to operate. We have a Garda force second to none who are supported by the community. The gardaí in their wisdom return that trust and they have served this nation well over the years. In this instance the civil liberties of the individual are on the one side and the credibility of the Garda is on the other. I want to see the credibility of the Garda upheld, and for that reason I believe amendments Nos. 2 and 7 are worthy of consideration. When it comes to a contest I hope we will call for a division.

It has been suggested that Deputy O'Dea misunderstood amendment No. 1. I do not think he did so. He may have been a little ambiguous but his point was well made. In the light of history Deputy O'Dea's contribution will be seen as excellent.

The Bill is a dangerous one. The powers of the Garda are at present limited in many ways, but the Bill will do more harm than good and will undermine the confidence of the community in our excellent Garda force.

Mr. Skelly

I did not contribute earlier on these amendments because I accepted the Minister's word that he would bring in a Bill before these sections became law. My worry is the move away from making the Complaints Commission independent. There is concern that when the provisions of the Bill are enforced, with the input of the Garda to this Complaints Commission, it will lose a lot of its independence, and its independence is most important. They were able to achieve this in Britain under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, under clause 74 of that Act. I might remind the Minister that Schedule III, clause 4 of that Act says that the members of the authority shall not include any person who is or has been a constable in any part of the United Kingdom. There is genuine concern being felt here that we do not have the Garda investigating themselves. That is not meant to be a criticism of the Garda. But the present complaints procedure is unsatisfactory. A lot of the public are dissatisfied with the present system of making complaints to the Garda and with the reception they receive whether it be when they go into a garda station, to a higher authority, or indeed what happens to the complaint after it has been processed and they do not get any response. They feel they are not treated in the most friendly manner when they do make such complaints.

I appreciate the hard work done by civil servants in regard to this Bill; indeed we have all worked on it, but one cannot take any kudos for that. We must remember the number of times that innocent persons may be detained for up to 20 hours at a time, which would be the effect of a certain section of this Bill.

I am glad to hear that the Garda will not have the right to a veto on the type of Bill to be introduced in relation to the Complaints Commission, because I should not like to see them having the same influence they have had in the compostion of this Bill. If the proposed Complaints Commission is not independent it will be ineffective. We could live temporarily with this Bill if we had a totally independent Complaints Commission. Although I accept the Minister's reasons it is unfortunate that that other Bill and the proposed Complaints Commission could not be brought before the House for examination concurrently with this one. I should like the Minister, when setting up this commission, to remember that there was a trade-off here, that we would get an independent Complaints Commission as a result of giving extra powers to the Garda. It would be totally useless and meaningless to have the Garda investigating themselves, with the provisions of this Bill in force, given the degree of dissatisfaction there is at present. Many people do not even complain. Although they go privately to public representatives at their clinics and sometimes perhaps come into this House to talk about them, most people do not go through with such complaints because they do not want the hassle, the trauma, they do not want to be harassed, be under suspicion or treated with comtempt when they do so. Indeed that seems to be a national characteristic even when one complains in a shop or anywhere else, that people immediately become defensive. However, in relation to complaints made to the Garda, I do not think it can be questioned that there is total dissatisfaction with the methods obtaining. If it is the Minister's intention to introduce the form of complaints commission described in the newspapers, with the Garda themselves being responsible for their investigation, it will lead to much unrest and dissatisfaction with the provisions of the Bill, certainly putting tremendous pressure on certain sections — which many of us would like to see deleted anyway — the public being alarmed at the lack of safeguards and adequate means of lodging justifiable complaints.

Mrs. Barnes

I accept the Minister's explanation of the impracticality of amendment No. 1 in the names of Deputy Mac Giolla and De Rossa. We are all glad to hear that the established committee are investigating pilot schemes in the area of electronic recordings. Indeed the whole thrust of that amendment was to have electronic recordings implemented as quickly as possible, particularly in regard to the detention section of the Bill. While we have all been striving within the limits of the provisions of the Bill and anxious about abuses there should not be allowed to happen any widening gap between the Garda and members of the public. We must be seen in every way to support the trust there is between them. Part of our worry has been that this proposal would lead to a sense of alienation or even hostility within certain communities which would have even wider implications for the whole of society. The electronic recordings taken and shown on British television I found tremendously courageous and honest, leading to a great public learning of the day-to-day work of the police. I know Deputy Kelly may have grave reservations about our copying methods in Britain. But what emerged from those recordings, as shown to the public, was the trust and honesty of the police to allow it happen because they recorded almost unconsciously their day-to-day workings. What emerged from those recordings as well was that, in certain areas, conscious or unconscious biases and prejudices arose in the course of their work, particularly in the treatment of some people who had come before them. However, these biases and prejudices were then tackled with public opinion supporting the police. Our Garda force would be endeavouring to ensure that their work be as public as possible, open to public scrutiny and that the public would become aware of the frustrations and difficulties they experience. Therefore reports on such electronic recordings cannot be over-emphasised, nor indeed the urgency for their implementation, particularly in the light of the detection section.

In regard to the establishment of an independent Complaints Commission we are striving, as we did throughout the many sections on Second and Committee Stages, to ensure that the rights of people, particularly those who might be innocently caught up in this, but also those of the Garda themselves, be shown honestly and clearly to be open to investigation in an independent manner. Other members have spoken about the absolute need for its independence and our regret that this is not being debated simultaneously with this Bill.

Many times when we have endeavoured to set up agencies or bodies, with the right motivation, hopefully encompassing the right structures the necessary resources were not there to back them up. What then happens is that there can be disillusionment felt about them. My plea to the Minister with regard to these amendments is that the appropriate resources be there to back up the Complaints Commission, when established, so that there will not be a sense of cynicism, that it is merely a front. Bearing in mind the points made by Deputy Skelly it should be seen to be totally independent, not alone having the commission act in an absolutely independent way without any hassle of any person approaching them, but also that the staff themselves will be able to deal with it with all due expedition. We want to avoid disillusionment and cynicism about the area of gardaí versus the public. Much of the anxiety expressed here has been in regard to that. We must have the resources as well as the structure.

Mr. L.T. Cosgrave

I welcome the progress that has been made in relation to the independent complaints procedure. Ideally, everything should be ready at the one time but this is complex legislation and obviously that is not possible.

Agreement has been general on what the Minister has repeated on numerous occasions, that several sections of the Bill will not come into effect until this complaints procedure has been brought before the House, discussed and examined. Points have been made about what that complaints procedure should contain. The public generally have the utmost confidence in the majority of the Garda, but a person whose house has been burgled or who has been the victim of an attack, on making a report of the crime may feel that he is merely part of statistics, that it is just another house that has been broken into. The procedure should provide for a better relationship between the public and the Garda so that the complainant, the person reporting the crime will be aware that there is a follow-up and after a couple of weeks or perhaps months he will be informed that progress has been made, perhaps some of the stolen goods have been recovered or that a person has been apprehended for the crime. Like other public servants, gardaí have a certain accountability to the public. People contact Government Departments about various matters and sometimes the follow-up does not appear to be there. The public should be made aware of progress by gardaí in the detection of crime.

Obviously, this will take time and money. While the possibility exists of people's rights being infringed by the Garda, one of the biggest complaints in this regard would seem to be apparent lack of interest. The vast majority of gardaí are concerned that people's complaints about crime are not seen to be merely taken down and put into statistics, that there is a follow-up and that perhaps weeks or months afterwards a definite answer comes out from the Garda either that unfortunately they were unable to apprehend anyone for that crime or that inquiries are proceeding, somebody will be charged eventually, no progress has been made in relation to the stolen goods but they are still investigating. This is one of the most important aspects of the relationship between the public and the Garda. The Garda may have good reasons sometimes for not giving information, but after a certain time they should communicate with the person who made the complaint even if only to say that nothing has happened. That communication could be by letter or by a garda calling to the person's house.

The Minister has made it quite clear that certain sections of the Bill will not take effect until the complaints procedure is decided upon. When we have the Bill in the autumn we can discuss and establish that this complaints procedure will be independent, that it will be effective and that complaints made at a Garda station or to any body that may be set up will be investigated and that the public will get satisfaction therefrom. Then expressed fears about possible harassment by gardaí will be alleviated.

Mr. J. Doyle

The Minister has guaranteed that we will have the regulations and the complaints procedure and in view of that I am satisfied. With regard to certain important Bills such as the Planning Bill, the Finance Bill and this Bill before the House a number of amendments are put down. We have 59 amendments to this Bill before us today and by 10.30 p.m. we will have got through only a fraction of them. In view of the importance of this Bill I feel that Members should try to keep their contributions as short as possible so that we can get through as many amendments as possible.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Conaghan)

I call on Deputy De Rossa to conclude.

Mr. De Rossa

The response of the Minister to my amendment that the Act should not operate until the regulations governing the recording of interrogations are made is based on the difficulties of producing such a system of recording and he felt that there was such a demand for the controversial sections of the Bill in particular that my amendment would not be acceptable. We must keep in mind that, generally speaking, we are being asked to accept the controversial points in the Bill on the basis that at some future date certain protections will be introduced. I accept the Minister's promise that he will not introduce the detention sections and other controversial sections until the complaints procedure and the regulations governing the detention of suspected persons have been introduced. However, the recording of interviews is as important as the other regulations and the complaints procedure. I argued on Committee Stage that if the electronic system showed difficulties on introduction some other form of recording, such as a manual system, should be introduced. Obviously, there would be drawbacks in relation to that, but some effort should be made to ensure that in particular the section on detention would not operate until recording takes place.

The Bill as a whole will bring about a fairly serious reduction in the rights of the individual and our system, as we have heard ad nauseam in the debate here, is based on the fact that a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. While I have welcomed some sections of this Bill as improvements in criminal law and I could even argue in favour of some of the sections which I have opposed if brought in on their own, taken as a whole, the Bill is a serious attack on the right of the individual. For that reason the House must ensure that every possible protection is included before the Bill is enacted. On the basis of our experience in recent years under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act whereby six of every seven persons detained are released without being charged, we must assume that the vast majority of those who will be detained under section 4 of this Bill will be innocent, too, and therefore released without being charged. It is important that recording systems be available for the purpose of monitoring detention and questioning so as to ensure that no undue pressure is exerted on the vast majority of those who will have no case to answer. I recognise the difficulties in introducing the electronic system but reports in this regard indicate that in Britain a considerable amount of progress has been made. Obviously any system we would introduce would have to accord with our own law but in the light of the commitment given by the Minister regarding the introduction of a complaints procedure and of regulations governing detention, he should give a commitment also in relation to the introduction of the electronics system of recording interviews. This would allay concern both from the point of view of the person being detained and of the Garda.

Amendment put and declared lost.

I move amendment No.2:

In page 3, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following:

"(3) Notwithstanding the generality of subsection (1) of this Section, no order shall be made by the Minister bringing into operation Sections 4 to 6, 8 to 10, 15, 16, 18 or 19, on a day earlier than a day on which a Garda Síochána Complaints Commission is established by statute."

In relation to the complaints procedure I accept what the Minister has said. He has given another firm assurance personally that he will proceed with the complaints procedure and has indicated that he is doing that. We just have a different point of view. We believe that this should be spelled out in the Bill now passing, and therefore we will press our amendment to have the Minister's commitment included in the Bill so that no matter what happens the complaints commission will be established at the same time as or on the day before these new powers of detention and arrest come into operation. We may be doing the Minister a good turn in so insisting, because he has to do his own negotiations in relation to the complaints procedure with various people, as he has said.

We have argued before that it would be appropriate to have the complaints procedure in this Bill. It is in legislation elsewhere and it is in Britain. We have argued that it should be included in this Bill and see no reason why it should not. We believe we should have a provision here which will ensure that these measures do not go ahead until the complaints procedure is provided. The Minister referred to the fact that he gave commitments at the Committee Stage and that we then withdrew our amendment. That is true; we withdrew it to see what progress would be made by Report Stage. That is not an unusual practice. That preserves for us the right to vote on that issue under Standing Orders on the Report Stage. Since the Report Stage was brought on fairly quickly following the conclusion of the Committee Stage by the request of the Minister — he wanted to have that done and we cooperated — his comment about the time which it took us to prepare amendments and so on consequent on that and the time when they come to his Department is not warranted. We regret that delay. I said in the first instance it was not reasonable to consider this Bill on Report Stage before next Tuesday as the time required would be of that order. The Minister wanted to take it this week and we agreed to oblige him. That put us under a lot of pressure and, as Deputy Andrews has said, we do not have the Department officials behind us. I appreciate the work that has to be done by the Departmental officials. We do not have their help. We have to put the Opposition view and we have to consider amendments very seriously and put them forward in a responsible way if we regard them as relevant to the Report Stage whether they are passed or not. There is a duty on us to examine what is being done and make sure our points are aired on Report Stage.

I would also like to pay tribute to the work done by the Bills Office, by the staff of the House who have done an exceptionally good job in getting all these amendments together within a very short time and ensuring their technical correctness, which is one of the most difficult things to handle. That duty falls personally on us also on this side of the House. The Minister does not have to worry about that in his personal capacity: once he agrees about what amendments will go in, somebody else will attend to the technical aspects of it. We have to do this ourselves, watch the lines, the sections and the relationships and so on, and this is very difficult and time-consuming. In supporting the Minister's tribute to his own officials I would like to pay tribute to the staff of the House for the very excellent work they have done and the very courteous way way in which they handled that work in fitting in with the requirements of the House to have the matter dealt with this week with that degree of urgency.

In regard to the complaints procedure, we now have an ombudsman and people are adjusting to that and in due course they will find, as they did in other countries many years ago, that it was a good thing rather than a bad thing and was not going to do them any harm. In fact it would promote the view and show that much of the work done by Departments is excellent and that grievances tend to be fairly minimal and that where genuine grievances exist they are dealt with. Then the whole system and the whole bureaucracy are seen to be more responsive to the needs of the people. There is a parallel here in the complaints procedure. While some people are reluctant to see it come into operation I believe if it is well thought out, keeping various interests in mind including that of the Garda Síochána, they will be happy to have it in due course and will see it as being in support of their activities. Eventually they will recognise this. In all countries where these complaints procedures were brought in the experience has been that they were very much resisted initially while subsequently they were found not to have the horns that people thought they would have in the first instance. People were very happy to have them established, and I believe that will be the case here.

We are pressing our amendment. We do not mean any personal affront to the Minister in doing that. I accept his personal undertakings. I believe that if he is there with all the opportunities he will have he will honour them, but in passing this legislation we feel there is an onus on us to ensure that the provision is tied into the legislation, and that is why we are pressing the amendment.

Amendment put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 74.

Tá

Ahern, Bertie.
Ahern, Michael.
Andrews, David.
Andrews, Niall.
Aylward, Liam.
Barrett, Michael.
Brady, Vincent.
Brennan, Paudge.
Brennan, Séamus.
Briscoe, Ben.
Burke, Raphael P.
Byrne, Hugh.
Conaghan, Hugh.
Connolly, Ger.
Cowen, Brian.
Daly, Brendan.
De Rossa, Proinsias.
Fahey, Francis.
Fahey, Jackie.
Faulkner, Pádraig.
Fitzgerald, Liam Joseph.
Flynn, Pádraig.
Foley, Denis.
Gallagher, Denis.
Gallagher, Pat Cope.
Hilliard, Colm.
Hyland, Liam.
Kirk, Séamus.
Kitt, Michael.
Lemass, Eileen.
Lenihan, Brian.
Leonard, Jimmy.
Leonard, Tom.
Leyden, Terry.
McCarthy, Seán.
Mac Giolla, Tomás.
Moynihan, Donal.
Noonan, Michael J.
(Limerick West)
O'Dea, William.
O'Hanlon, Rory.
O'Keeffe, Edmond.
O'Kennedy, Michael.
O'Leary, John.
O'Rourke, Mary.
Power, Paddy.
Reynolds, Albert.
Treacy, Noel.
Wallace, Dan.
Walsh, Seán.
Wilson, John P.
Woods, Michael.
Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

Allen, Bernard.
Barnes, Monica.
Barrett, Seán.
Barry, Myra.
Barry, Peter.
Begley, Michael.
Bell, Michael.
Conlon, John F.
Connaughton, Paul.
Coogan, Fintan.
Cooney, Patrick Mark.
Cosgrave, Liam T.
Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
Coveney, Hugh.
Crotty, Kieran.
Crowley, Frank.
D'Arcy, Michael.
Deasy, Martin Austin.
Desmond, Barry.
Desmond, Eileen.
Donnellan, John.
Dowling, Dick.
Doyle, Joe.
Dukes, Alan.
Durkan, Bernard J.
Enright, Thomas W.
Farrelly, John V.
Fennell, Nuala.
FitzGerald, Garret.
Flaherty, Mary.
Flanagan, Oliver J.
Glenn, Alice.
Griffin, Brendan.
Hussey, Gemma.
Kavanagh, Liam.
Keating, Michael.
Kelly, John.
Kenny, Enda.
Bermingham, Joe.
Birmingham, George Martin.
Boland, John.
Bruton, John.
Bruton, Richard.
Carey, Donal.
Cluskey, Frank.
L'Estrange, Gerry.
McCartin, Joe.
McGahon, Brendan.
McGinley, Dinny.
McLoughlin, Frank.
Manning, Maurice.
Mitchell, Gay.
Mitchell, Jim.
Molony, David.
Moynihan, Michael.
Naughten, Liam.
Nealon, Ted.
Noonan, Michael.
(Limerick East)
O'Brien, Fergus.
O'Brien, Willie.
O'Donnell, Tom.
O'Keeffe, Jim.
O'Sullivan, Toddy.
Owen, Nora.
Pattison, Séamus.
Prendergast, Frank.
Quinn, Ruairí.
Skelly, Liam.
Spring, Dick.
Taylor, Mervyn.
Taylor-Quinn, Madeline.
Timmins, Godfrey.
Treacy, Seán.
Yates, Ivan.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies B. Ahern and Briscoe; Níl, Deputies Barrett(Dún Laoghaire) and Taylor.

Amendment declared lost.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Amendment No. 3 is in the name of Deputies Mac Giolla and De Rossa.

Mr. De Rossa

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 3, line 15, to delete "and 19" and substitute, ", 19 and 25".

This amendment relates to section 2. We are seeking to add section 25 to the list of sections——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order, please. Continue, please, Deputy.

Mr. De Rossa

——to the list of sections which fall after five years as it stands and after four years as the Minister proposes in his amendment.

Section 25 relates to majority verdicts. On Committee Stage we argued that majority verdicts should not be introduced until such time as the Special Criminal Court had ceased to operate. The Minister refused to accept that amendment. At least, the majority verdicts section should be up for review in a similar fashion to sections 4, 6, 8 to 10 inclusive, 15 and 16, 18 and 19. These sections are referred to by the Minister as controversial sections. These deal with detention, powers of the Garda in relation to questions asked of a detained person, the power to destroy records and the right to take inferences from a person's failure or refusal to reply to questioning. We argue that the majority verdicts section should be taken as controversial and be reviewed after the four year period, the date which the Minister proposes for the sections to which I have just referred.

There is no indication whatsoever as to the effectiveness of majority verdicts, either in assuring the acquittal of an innocent person or the conviction of a guilty one. During Committee Stage, the Minister referred to a number of headlines over a period of about a year to various stories in which newspapers reported hung juries. There is no indication to what extent the juries were hung, whether it was one person who did not agree with the rest of the jurors, or half the jury or three or four. There is no hard basis on which to judge the effectiveness of majority verdicts. For that reason, the section should be reviewed in view of the fact that it affects a right which accused persons have had for generations. It reduces to some extent the right of an accused person to be considered innocent until proven guilty and to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. For that reason, I would ask the Minister to accept this amendment. It does not in any way reduce the effectiveness of the section as it stands. It requires the section to be reviewed in the same way as the other controversial sections.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): This amendment seeks to make section 25, which proposes to introduce majority verdicts, temporary in nature, so that it would cease to have effect in common with the other sections listed in section 2 unless continued in force by resolution of both Houses. I do not know of any compelling reason for doing this and when the point was previously put to me on Committee Stage I did not propose to do it. You are either against majority verdicts or for them; it is a matter of principle. One accepts that they are either right or wrong and I do not think that a temporary trial period will change people's views.

I believe it to be wrong that one person out of 12 can cause a jury to disagree, whether the verdict would have been for or against conviction, thus causing a mistrial with the inevitable consequence of an expensive retrial having to be ordered. Not only the cost and waste of court time causes me concern, but also the position of the accused. He must endure the ordeal of a fresh trial which, in effect, subjects him to a form of double jeopardy. We must also think of the additional distress to witnesses who are often the victims of the offences. I illustrated previously cases of hung juries and they seem to be on the increase.

There is also the business of jury nobbling. I have no accurate figures on this, but there have been cases recently where there was more than a hint of interference with juries.

To come back to the point of the amendment, I do not see what we are likely to learn over a four year period which would affect the issue of the principle involved. All we would have would be a figure for the number of convictions by majority. We would have no corresponding figure for acquittals, because acquittal by majority cannot be disclosed. Any figure, whether high or low, would be open to different interpretations. A high figure could, with some justification, be said to prove the need for majority verdicts, on the basis that these would be cases in which juries would have been likely to disagree under the present regime.

It could also be quite strongly argued that such a conclusion would not be warranted without further information, because nobody could be sure that unanimity would not have been reached under the existing system if the jury had stayed out for a longer period and tried to achieve unanimity. I do not think that sort of information could be available in such a manner that we could use the statistic as a basis for a policy decision. If at the end of four years, we discovered that the figure was low what would it prove, that majority verdicts were unnecessary, or that they were basically safe and acceptable? One could view the matter either way.

At the risk of exciting the ire of Deputies who do not like me to refer to what happens in neighbouring jurisdictions, there have been majority verdicts in Britain, in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and there is no evidence of a miscarriage of justice as a result of a majority verdict. On that basis, I am not prepared to accept the amendment. The basic reason is that I do not think there is anything to be learned over a four-year period. One either agrees or disagrees in principle with the idea. I do not think that keeping statistics and making an evaluation of the statistics over a four-year period would prove anything either way. The statistics will be open to different interpretations and we could have the same kind of argument we had here on Committee Stage.

We can learn from the information that will become available in regard to the other sections of the Bill which are being given temporary life. We will have statistics available to us and we can evaluate them. We can also learn from changes in court procedures and practices. There is little or nothing to be learned from a compilation of statistics on how many people have been convicted by majority jury verdicts. I am not accepting the amendment.

Dr. Woods

We welcome the majority verdicts, and we do not agree with the amendment. There is no reason to go back over the arguments made on Committee Stage. We believe it is necessary to introduce majority verdicts. We have gone into the safeguards and the time limit involved. The judge will call on the jury to bring in a majority verdict. We believe the Minister's provision meets the principle we have in mind. We do not support the amendment.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Only if the Minister's amendment is defeated can amendment No. 5 be moved.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I move amendment No. 4:

In page 3, line 15, to delete "five" and substitute "four".

The purpose of this amendment is to reduce from five years to four years the period after which certain sections of the Bill — essentially those relating to detention, withholding of information and inferences from silence — will lapse unless they are continued in force by resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas. The five-year limit was included by me by way of an amendment on Committee Stage, as a result of suggestions made in this House. During the debate, a number of Deputies suggested that five years was too long and I agreed to consider the question further. I am now proposing to reduce the time limit to four years.

Four years is, I believe, about right for a provision of this kind. We need to allow sufficient time to enable a proper evaluation to be carried out of how these provisions will have worked in practice. We can, for example, expect certain aspects of the provisions to be judicially considered and we have to allow enough time for cases to be taken through the courts and the appeal process. Reasonable time must be allowed also for amending legislation to be prepared and considered by both Houses, if we are to make changes as a result of the evaluation over the period.

As I said on Committee Stage, it is intended that so far as possible records would be kept of relevant matters relating to the detention and other provisions so as to facilitate the review of the sections at the appropriate time. I hope we will have sufficient statistical information ready to form the basis for an evaluation by the Minister and by the Department and that if changes are necessary they will be carried out in good time so that they can be introduced at the end of the four-year period.

Dr. Woods

We welcome the Minister's amendment reducing the period from five to four years. If I remember correctly, on Committee Stage we spoke about three years. In deciding on four years, I think the Minister has decided on a reasonable period and we accept what he has proposed. On reflection, four years is probably a sufficient period to have the measures tested, examined and applied in order to get the information which the Members of the House will need in relation to the decisions they will have to take. We accept the Minister's amendment.

Mr. De Rossa

Our amendment will not be taken unless the Minister's amendment is defeated, which is unlikely. Our amendment was to substitute two years for five years. The Minister and the House are aware that the sections referred to are largely unacceptable to The Workers' Party. We consider them to be unworkable in that they will not have the desired effect and have not been shown to have the desired effect in countries where they have been introduced. However, given that we are a party of two Members in this House and that it is unlikely that our view will be accepted, we consider there should be the shortest possible period before the sections have to be renewed. That was the reason we put down two years.

The Minister may well argue that what we propose is not practical because some cases may not have proceeded fully through the courts. The effect of the Bill in dealing with detained persons does not have to result in cases appearing in court and being processed through the court before an assessment can be made regarding the usefulness of the measure. Amendment No. 6 in our name goes into details regarding the kind of statistics which we consider should be kept and how often they should be published. The result of court cases or the fact that cases may be taking place should have no bearing on whether the section should be reviewed after any number of years. Primarily this Bill is dealing with people who are arrested and detained and the effect on them before they reach court. For that reason we are pressing the proposal that there should be a review after two years.

Mr. Skelly

While I welcome the reduction by one year I am sorry the Minister could not see his way to reduce the period by a further year for a very important reason. Members of this House have agonised over this Bill for a long time. There is an obvious concern outside this House on the part of ordinary people, professional people and members of voluntary groups with regard to this Bill. Members of this House have spent considerable time debating the Bill and are familiar with what it contains, and I consider it would be advantageous for those same Members to decide whether the legislation should continue in operation in the future and, of course, that would mean during the lifetime of this Dáil. For that reason it would be necessary to have a three-year period.

On Committee Stage I suggested that we have a period of two to three years. After much thought I have come to the conclusion that we should not have the shortest possible time. That is not the best option if it is going to be based on statistics that will come during the monitoring of this section over a very short period. That would ensure that the section would be extended in perpetuity by a vote of the House. Therefore, it is necessary to have a reasonable length of time. Taking into account the argument of the Minister regarding appeals and so on, I consider the minimal length of time should be taken, and that would seem to me to be during the lifetime of this Dáil. Assuming this Dáil will continue until 1987, we would have about three years to monitor the sections and then Members of this House could make a decision. After a general election the new Members may not be aware of the argument and the debate that has gone on for so long concerning this section. These new Members will not be under the same pressure as the present Members of the House have been from outside bodies who have made submissions on this matter. By accepting four years, possibly the review will come during the first year of the new Dáil and if there is a majority I do not see any difficulty in the matter being voted through. For that reason I should have preferred three years.

A reasonable length of time will be needed to monitor the section. I am confident on the basis of the statistics that will be available that we will want to remove from the legislation sections 4 to 6, 8 to 10, 15, 16, 18 and 19. Although I am grateful that the Minister proposes to reduce the time to four years, I wish to have it on the record that in my opinion three years would have been more desirable if it was considered that two years was too short a period. We should have the opportunity of deciding whether this should be a permanent part of our legislation for two reasons, namely, for the protection and the continuance of the good standing of the gardaí in the community and for the effect it may have on innocent members of society, about which matters so many people have expressed genuine concern.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): Really it is a question of picking what one thinks is an appropriate period which would allow the opportunity for a worthwhile evaluation to take place. I suggested five years on Committee Stage and I am now proposing to reduce this to four years. An argument could be made to reduce it further to three years: around three or four years seems to be the correct time, especially in relation to sections 13 and 14, 17 and 18 and even section 3. The courts will look at these sections and make decisions which will be appealed. We need the experience of a number of cases going through the appeals process. I should also like to point out that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent a Minister bringing in amending legislation within the four year period if it is considered necessary. If sections are seen not to be working and there is a need for amending legislation, the fact that we are putting a four year moratorium on these sections does not mean that they have to run for the whole four years. The option is there all the time to amend legislation in the normal way within that time limit.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment No. 5 not moved.

Mr. De Rossa

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 3, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:

"(2) The Commissioner of the Garda Síochána shall publish or cause to have published, for each six month period for which this Act is in effect, detailed statistics of the operation of the Act, which shall include: the numbers of persons arrested under section 4 (2); the number of persons in respect of whom the period of detention was extended under section 4 (3) (b); the number of persons arrested more than once under section 4 (2), and the number of arrests in each case; the periods of time for which persons were detained; the number of persons who were visited by (a) a solicitor, or (b) a relative, during the period of detention; the number of persons in respect of whom the powers contained in section 6 (1) were exercised; the number of persons released without charge following detention; the number of persons against whom proceedings were initiated and the number of convictions.".

This amendment goes into some detail as to the kind of statistics which should be published in relation to the operation of section 4 (2), (3) and section 6 (1). It stipulates that the statistics should be published by the Garda Commissioner every six months from the date the sections come into effect. There was considerable discussion on Committee Stage as to how section 3, as it was then, but which is now section 4, would operate. That is the section relating to detention and how we could judge after the four year period whether the sections had operated in the ways which the Minister expected or, as I claimed, that they would have no significant effect on the detention or conviction rate. However, as the Bill stands, there is no requirement on anyone, the Garda Commissioner, the Minister or his Department, to gather the statistics required to help in making a decision on whether the section should continue in operation, and that is why we put down the amendment as worded. The Minister may see defects in the wording or think that the six months period is too short but, having regard to the Minister's comments in relation to the previous amendment that if sections are not working it is quite feasible for the Minister to bring in further amendments within the four year period, it is reasonable to expect that in making such a decision — and Members of this House will have to decide on acceptance or rejection of such amendments — reasonably accurate and frequent statistics should be available on the operation of sections of the Bill, particularly those which are controversial. We put down the amendment to require that certain statistics are kept so that valid decisions can be made in four years' time on whether particular sections should continue.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I am not in agreement with this amendment because it is inappropriate in a Bill dealing with matters of substantive criminal law and procedure and I do not consider it necessary. In fairness, I should say that I sympathise with Deputy De Rossa and Deputy Mac Giolla in the underlying motive of their amendment. I have said previously that records of this kind will be kept in the ordinary course of administration to enable the detention sections of the Bill to be properly reviewed. However, I do not accept that there is a need for a binding legal obligation to be placed on me or the Garda to compel the keeping of records. In the normal course of administration records will be kept to evaluate sections of the Bill and it is not necessary to put these explicit provisions into the Bill.

Dr. Woods

We sympathise with the intention of the movers of the amendment, but the Minister has given an undertaking that these statistics will be kept and made available and we accept that assurance. We regard it as an administrative procedure in reviewing the operation of the Bill when it becomes law. Therefore, we do not support the amendment, because it would put a statutory requirement on the Minister to collect statistics and we accept his assurance that this will be done.

Mr. Skelly

I agree that this amendment should not be in the Bill. Nevertheless, there is a need for the collection of this kind of information. I do not know whether the Minister mentioned it but I thought it would be part of the regulations which would compel the Garda to keep this kind of information. The only stipulation I would like to see is that it would be necessary, by regulation, to keep this kind of information so that it would be available to Members of this House on demand.

Mr. De Rossa

The Minister has refused to accept the amendment on the basis that he does not believe it is necessary to include it in the Bill and because he has already made a commitment that statistics will be kept in relation to section 4. On Committee Stage, frequent reference was made to the unavailability of information in regard to the criminal system and the great shortage of statistics or studies made on the operation of the courts, the Garda and prisons. Specific reference was made to the operation of section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act where, although we could get figures on the number of persons detained under that Act, considerable effort had to be expended to locate information on the number of persons who were subsequently prosecuted arising from their detention and the number who were released without charge.

I also sought information from the Minister in relation to the Misuse of Drugs Bill but the statistics I was seeking were not available. When we were discussing the section in relation to bail there was no published evidence available. The Minister referred to confidential information which was available through his Department but there was no concrete published evidence in regard to the changes in the operation of the law. There is a general need for an improvement in the statistics which are kept by the Department and the Garda, especially in relation to the changes we are proposing in the Bill. It is essential that at the end of four years those who are here will have the capacity, based on firm evidence, to decide whether the sections should be continued. I will not press the amendment. I accept the Minister's assurance and hope that when he is establishing the procedure on which the statistics are to be kept the broadest possible headings will be used so that we may have substantial evidence on which to make future decisions.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

This will shorten the debate but will make it more difficult to follow. The Minister drew heavily on the Ó Briain report, particularly on the Ó Briain addendum, to support his case on this and other sections of the Bill. I would draw the Minister's attention to page 22 where Barra Ó Briain said at the end of the second paragraph:

I would favour the amendment of the law here to provide that a person reasonably suspected of a crime but none others might be "detained" for questioning until the gardaí either decide to arrest and charge him formally, or alternatively to release him, but in no case, for longer than a period of six hours.

In the fourth paragraph he said:

This power to "detain" in order to question is already provided for in the Offences Against the State Act, 1939, and I would recommend that the six hours mentioned above be adopted as the norm in all cases, with certain powers for a District Justice or a Peace Commissioner to extend the normal period for a strictly limited time in respect of cases covered by that Act and the Emergency Powers Act, 1976, rather than the lengthy periods now set out in these two Acts.

In effect, Barra Ó Briain was saying that under no circumstances should the power of detention be for longer than six hours in the normal course of events, that under the Offences Against the State Act, the power to detain for 24 hours, and a subsequent 24 hours, should be reduced to six hours, and that it is only under the Offences Against the State Act and the Emergency Powers Act, 1976, that any possibility of an extension of detention should be considered.

I have doubts as to how the six hour period was decided upon. I know that in other jurisdictions other periods have been proposed — some as low as four hours: there may be other jurisdictions which propose even shorter periods, and others propose longer periods. I do not see how in the normal course of events when dealing with ordinary crime the Garda cannot carry out their questioning, forensic tests and following up any lines of inquiries in six hours, given that six hours is very close to a full working day. I cannot see the necessity for allowing the extension for a further six hours.

In the Sunday Times of 1 July, 1984, the point was made that one benefit of recording for the police was that the interviews were far more natural and spontaneous because instead of pausing between questions to take verbatim notes, the officer can keep up a rapid flow of relevant questions. Interviews that might have taken 90 minutes are reduced to ten minutes by being taped. I do not propose to return to the taping debate, but in the normal course of events the questioning of suspects should not require a period of six hours to elicit the information required. I am opposed in principle to the idea of detention, and I cannot accept that there is a need to extend the six hour period for the purpose of investigating ordinary crime by a further six hours, and the eight hours rest period, which stretches the total time for which a person can be detained to 20 hours.

Dr. Woods

We are discussing amendments No. 8 to 12, inclusive, together. Deputy De Rossa outlined the purpose of his amendment, but this is something with which we cannot go along. We accept that there may be certain circumstances in which the second six hour period would be required. In amendments Nos. 9 and 10 the Minister is meeting a point I made on Committee Stage, that is, that there should be reasonable grounds for believing that a person should be detained for the second period. Amendment No. 10 proposes that "is of opinion" be deleted and "has reasonable grounds for believing" be inserted. Section 4 (3) (b) reads:

An officer of the Garda Síochána not below the rank of chief superintendent may direct that a person detained pursuant to subsection (2) be detained for a further period not exceeding six hours if he is of opinion that such further detention is necessary for the proper investigation of the offence.

On Committee Stage I said I would be happier with a superintendent having the right, but based on reasonable grounds, rather than a chief superintendent at a further remove and being of the opinion. I welcome the Minister's amendment, which will mean that the paragraph will read "An officer of the Garda Síochána not below the rank of superintendent may direct on reasonable grounds..." I support these two amendments.

I have listened to the points made on all sides and have taken into consideration the studies carried out in England on confessions and police interrogation. It was shown that nearly 86 per cent were questioned by police for shorter than two hours. Having discussed this with a number of police officers involved in the practical side here we found that two hours would meet many of their problems. They found here that two hours would suffice for less serious offences but that in very serious cases more time would be needed. Indeed 89 per cent of cases would require less than one hour.

Of course the more serious categories would take longer, and the amendment proposes that the longer time would be needed only for very serious offences when the second six hours might be required. It is about that second period that we are concerned, and that is what prompted us to put down the amendment. We confined it to very serious offences such as murder, rape, treason, or an attempt or conspiracy to commit any such offence. It is difficult to think of all the possible very serious offences. Our purpose is to give power to the Minister to add to that list and to place any further serious offences, by way of order or regulation, on the Table of the House for either annulment or confirmation.

We regard the amendment as reasonable. It gives power to the Minister under normal procedures to lay any amendments he might want to make on the Table by way of regulation or order. We are suggesting that the six hours would be confined to very serious cases, like those listed in our amendment. The Minister may say the superintendent of the Garda operating the system will tend to agree with this in any event. That might well be the case, but we felt we should indicate our view clearly that we only call for the second six hours for serious offences.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): In reply to Deputy De Rossa's and Deputy Mac Giolla's amendment, I think the second six hours will be necessary for a minority of cases only. That is why I specifically included six hours plus six rather than a single period of 12 hours. The Bill provides that it must be seen to be necessary by a superintendent.

I do not accept the amendment. On Committee Stage the House decided that 12 hours was an appropriate period of detention. I agree that, in the vast majority of cases, only a small portion of the initial six hour period will be necessary, but there will be cases where one full period will be required. It will also be necessary to extend the period, but in that minority of cases we agreed on Committee Stage that the further six hours should be provided, and I want the House to continue its agreement to that.

The amendments I am moving take into account points raised on Committee Stage. Their purpose is to allow an extra six hours detention to be authorised by an officer not below the rank of superintendent. At present the authorising officer must be at least a chief superintendent. It is also being provided that the authorising officer must have reasonable grounds for believing, rather than "be of the opinion", that a further period of detention is necessary for the proper investigation of the offence.

On Committee Stage, an amendment tabled by Deputy Woods would have required a chief superintendent to base a decision to authorise a further period of detention on "reasonable grounds". During the debate then I pointed out the difficulties that would be involved and the problems that could arise because a chief superintendent would normally be operating at some remove from an individual investigation and consequently might be said not be in a position himself to have adequate knowledge of the circumstances so as to satisfy the test of reasonableness.

By allowing the decision to be taken by a superintendent, it is possible to get over this difficulty and incorporate the test of reasonableness. This will be an objective test which will be open to review by the courts. A superintendent will usually be closer to an investigation taking place within his district than a chief superintendent could be and will have sufficient knowledge and information available to him to be in a position to base his decision on reasonable grounds.

The deletion of lines 29 to 31 is consequential since it now will be a superintendent who will be taking the decision to extend the initial detention period. It is not proposed to provide for an officer of a lower rank to act in his absence. There ought to be no practical difficulty about the availability of a superintendent to perform this function.

Originally, in the absence of a chief superintendent somebody acting in his place could have given the authorisation, but that is not considered to be necessary because superintendents are generally available and should be available.

Deputy Woods' amendment No. 11 would mean that the extension of the detention period for a further six hours could only be granted for treason, murder, rape, attempt or conspiracy to commit any such offence, etc. This would involve a list system on the purpose of detention under section 4. This raises the problem posed in the five year formula, whether it was too wide or whether a schedule of offences would be more appropriate. Another problem about the amendment is that there is no limit as to what could be included in the list. Therefore, by extending it, I could achieve the same effect as is accomplished in the five-year formula. I could come back with a list including all felonies, anything that takes a five-year sentence. It would not necessarily achieve what it sets out to achieve. What I have done is a better solution. A two-tier system of detention operating on a schedule of offences for the second moiety would be very cumbersome and complicated. At an operational level the Garda would have a certain amount of difficulty in dealing with it. There is a drafting difficulty of a minor nature in that the amendment does not state who would make the regulations. I presume it is the Minister who would make the regulations. I would prefer if Dr. Woods withdrew the amendment. We need the 12 hours for all five year offences, if necessary in the course of the investigation of such offences.

Purely for the information of the House I should like to state that the Garda have a number of lists to contend with at present. A common law classification of offences into felonies and misdemeanours determines whether a member of the Garda has the power to arrest without warrant. Apart from some statutory exceptions the general rule is that there is a power of arrest for felonies but not for misdemeanours. This classification, however, is complicated by the fact that a very minor offence — for instances of the larceny of a small amount of money — is a felony and very serious offences such as obtaining property by false pretences irrespective of the value of the property are misdemeanours. Legislation is in the course of preparation to abolish the distinction between felonies and misdemeanours and to provide that all indictable offences which carry a penalty of at least five years in prison will be arrestable offences, offences where gardaí will have the power to arrest without warrant.

People frequently make the point that we are excluding misdemeanours and that they are generally in the area of what people call "white collar crime". We will have an opportunity to discuss that in the next session. I am trying to illustrate that a garda has power to arrest without warrant but he has to decide whether something is a felony or a misdemeanour. He has to have a very accurate idea of these lists or he will exceed his authority. There is also a list of offences scheduled by the Government under the Offences Against the State Act, 1939, such as firearms and explosives offences, malicious damage offences, offences under the Offences Against the State Act itself and watching and besetting. The significance of the offence in this schedule is that there is the power of detention for up to 48 hours in respect of them and unless the DPP otherwise directs the offences on this list will be tried by the Special Criminal Court. The point I am making is that gardaí have to learn and remember what is on the list, because if they arrest and detain under the Offences Against the State Act they must be sure it is for one of the appropriate offences. Another list they have to cope with is for offences under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act, 1976. That list covers many more offences than those scheduled under the Offences Against the State Act. The significance is that these offences are committed in Northern Ireland, are offences against the law of the State and are, therefore, triable in the State. There is a list of offences in section 8 of the Criminal Law Act, 1976. It is a complicated list of nine different categories of offences in respect of which gardaí have power to search vehicles and persons in vehicles.

On the practical operational level those considerations weighed with me when evaluating whether I would put in the five-year formula which corresponds in general to what is at present a felony or whether I would go for a schedule. The schedule would have to be quite long and would add another list to the considerable number of lists gardaí have to cope with at the moment. It would make it difficult for them at an operational level. Deputy Woods' amendment suggests in effect that a number of specific offences should be mentioned in the Bill, which would be a list for which the second six-hour moiety could be appropriate in certain circumstances if the superintendent decided it was reasonable to believe he needed the extra six hours. As well as that he wants the Minister to bring in regulations to the Dáil with another list of offences for which the second six-hour moiety would also be appropriate. That suggestion would be cumbersome and would not achieve very much beyond what we have achieved already. It would make for operational difficulties, and I ask the Deputy to consider withdrawing his amendment.

Mr. Skelly

Is it the intention to have a sos today?

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): We have had communication across the House about that. I suggest that we deal with the amendments before the House and then break for one hour.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Barrett,

Dublin North-West): I take it that the arrangement is agreed.

Mr. O'Dea

I was surprised to hear the Minister say that the amendment put forward by Dr. Woods will not achieve very much. In my opinion amendment No. 11 is fundamental to the entire operation of the legislation. In the course of the Committee Stage debate we did not have much time to deal with the general principle of how long the period of detention should be because we were concerned to remove some blatant injustices from the original legislation. The original legislation was blatantly discriminatory in that it appeared to discriminate against a person on the outside being taken in for the first time and against the person who was on the inside and could be detained on the opinion of a chief superintendent for a further six hours. The arresting garda only had to have reasonable grounds for suspecting a person of having committed an offence to which the Act relates to take him in. The chief superintendent could have a person detained for a further six hours on the basis of his opinion. We argued long and hard against that provision on Committee Stage, and I am glad the Minister accepted our argument and the suggestion we put forward that the superintendent, as it is now, should come to the conclusion on reasonable grounds rather than simply as a matter of opinion. I thank the Minister for accepting that.

We can now go on to discuss the general principle of how long the period of detention should be in total. The Minister said he considers a two-tier system reasonable but there has not been any convincing case — I have gone through the Official Report of the Committee Stage debate — for the second six-hour period of detention in all types of offences covered by the Bill, offences that would carry a sentence of five years. No convincing evidence, statistical or otherwise, has been produced to justify the necessity for a further six-hour period of detention. The Minister seems fixed in having that second six-hour period of detention. We have gone some of the way with him by agreeing to that second period of detention in very serious cases. We enumerated some of those cases but we left it to the Minister to set out the other serious cases he considers should be subject to the second period of detention.

I agree with the Minister when he said it would be easy for him to drive a coach and four through our amendment by bringing in a regulation containing a long list of offences. However, I hope the Minister accepts the spirit of our amendment. We are not putting it forward so that the Minister can find a loophole in it and render it nugatory. We are putting the amendment forward in a spirit of co-operation. We want the best legislation possible. If the Bill has to be passed by the Dáil we want proper safeguards included. We do not want measures included in it which are not necessary. I do not see any need for any second six-hour period of detenion, but in order to go some of the way with the Minister we have listed some serious cases to which it could be applied. We envisage the Minister designating cases shown by statistical evidence to justify a second six-hour period of detention. I hope the Minister accepts that our amendment was tabled in that spirit.

No case has been made to justify the second six-hour detention period. The gardaí have been looking for extended periods of detention but this fact does not of itself justify them or imply that they are necessary. The amendment we are suggesting is fundamental to the whole basis of this legislation and the Minister should look at it reasonably. I thank him for coming part of the way with us and removing the obvious injustices and discriminations in the original legislation. His proposal is contrary to the clear recommendations of the Ó Briain Committee, and he should also bear in mind the recent studies by the Commission on Justice and Peace which suggest that draconian legislation which does not work brings the law into disrepute. There are no grounds for a second six-hour period of detention, except in very serious cases. It is not justified in all the possible cases which could be dealt with under this legislation.

Mr. Skelly

I am on record as saying that I would be happy if the second six-hour detention period was removed altogether and that I am totally opposed to detention in any form. Amendment No. 11 put forward by Deputy Woods is reasonable. It is another example of his thoughtful and constructive approach. He has brought forward another proposal which sets us back on our heels and makes us think very carefully about the section. A positive improvement could be made by restricting the second period of detention to very serious cases, if it is used at all. At least it would be confined. A person can be arrested for virtually anything. Section 3 would apply in the case of anybody stealing a car or joy riding, because that offence carries a sentence of five years' imprisonment. Not only does it apply to the person driving the car but it applies also to passengers. A garda might ask a person the registration number of a car and if he could not give the correct reply the gardaí could suspect him of stealing the car and section 3 would then apply.

I see much merit in the proposal put forward and I support Deputy O'Dea's argument. We should give this matter serious consideration. It might to some extent reduce this abhorrent section to some semblance of decency by restricting the offences for which one could be detained, certainly for a second period, to very serious crimes.

I find it difficult to accept the Minister's argument that it would be difficult for the gardaí because they would have to have an extended list. I cannot see any great difficulty. I would urge the Minister to think about this matter. I am on record as saying on Committee Stage that I was in favour of the deletion of "chief superintendent" in regard to extending the period of detention, but the Minister has balanced the section somewhat by changing "opinion" to "has reasonable grounds for believing". I welcome the Minister's baby step on the road to libertarianism and I would ask him to consider this amendment put forward by Deputy Woods.

Mr. D. Andrews

I support Deputy Woods on this amendment. This has been agreed to be an abhorrent section. I believe it is a dangerous section. I would describe some of the sections as a lawyer's paradise. The Minister argues against the amendment as adding to the bureaucratic nature of the section. As it stands, it is one of the most bureaucratised sections in the Bill. That would be one of the minor arguments against it. All the amendment proposes to do is to give support to the original argument about the first six-hours detention. In relation to the second six-hour detention period the amendment proposes to set out a list of offences. That is not unreasonable in view of the dangerous nature of the section. The Minister states that they may be a minor drafting problem in regard to the amendment.

I would question the efficiency with which the section would work. I understand that the Minister intends to hold courses in the operation of the Bill for the Garda force. These courses will be comprehensive and will be conducted by people who understand the nature and philosophy of the Bill. These lecturers of attending Garda will comprehend the message they are imparting to their listeners. That is the only way I can foresee the provisions of this Bill operating, and particularly those of this section, which is an extremely complicated and extensive one. I say, with respect to the Garda Síochána, it would take a lot to convince me that an ordinary member of the force would comprehend the section and its terms, or that he will understand the implications of its operations, as at present worded. That applies also to the other controversial sections we have pointed out to the Minister in the course of this debate. Those are the problems I foresee in connection with the operation of the provisions of the section itself.

Deputy Woods' amendment No. 11 goes a long way to lessening the impact of the second six hours detention. The Minister might reconsider his outright refusal to accept the amendment, as drafted.

The minor drafting amendment raises the spectre of the inefficiency of the system to which the Opposition Parties are exposed. We have raised the point before that we do not have a proper technical back-up service available to us. I do not concede that we have not properly debated this Bill, but there may be other Bills not properly debated in some circumstances. Perhaps the Minister would bring the message back to the Government — I consider it a worthwhile one — that we should have technical advice available to us, even from the civil service. It must be conceded that when one is out of government, one is out of government and in a democracy that is how it should be. But there should be some system devised by a pioneering thinking Government of some form of back-up service being available to the Opposition spokesperson and those others in Opposition who will support that person in debates. There should be some system devised in order to guarantee worthwhile investigative debate even from the point of view of proposing amendments to Bills before the House. It is a problem with which the House should concern itself, perhaps not today but at some point in the future.

The Bill before the House is a controversial one whose provisions I believe will be very difficult to implement. I believe the Garda will experience extreme difficulty in implementing the provisions of section 4 and other controversial sections, subsection by subsection. If it cannot be implemented subsection by subsection then the lawyers will have a field day and the object of the Bill will not be achieved.

Mrs. Barnes

The Minister has said already that he will be introducing statutory regulations. What Deputy Woods is attempting to do through his amendment, to a very difficult and controversial section, is to introduce some kind of regulation of this section also. Amendment No. 11 attempts to establish a certain standard or discipline that should render interpretation easier. The seriousness of the second period of detention worries all of us. Taking into account the whole drafting operation in process in regard to the whole of the Bill the Minister might ascertain if it could be reconsidered because the wording: "and the offence is one of treason, murder, rape, or an attempt or conspiracy to commit any such offence ..." would cover what we would consider to be serious crimes. While all of us are reluctant even to contemplate a second detention period Deputy Woods' amendment would go some way towards alleviating the fears of people that it might not be properly interpreted, so that that second period of detention would not be imposed except in the most grave circumstances. This amendment attempts to spell out those circumstances, and the Minister might reconsider it.

Mr. De Rossa

I might conclude in relation to my amendment, No. 8, and make a number of points. This is an amendment about which I feel strongly and which I intend pressing. I regret that the Fianna Fáil spokesman has indicated that he does not support it. While there is some merit in Deputy Woods' amendment I feel it would be seen to be unnecessary if this second detention period did not exist in the first place. Most of the case in support of detention is made on the ground that we must be seen to tackle serious crime effectively. Statistics are trotted out in relation to detection rates which indicate that there is a detection rate of as low as 30 per cent for crime generally in this State. That is true if one takes all types of crime together. However, in the 1983 report of the Garda Commissioner it is said that the detection rates for serious crime are much higher. For example, in respect of offences against the person the detection rate in 1983 was just short of 83 per cent. For offences against property with violence the detection rate was quite low, 31½ per cent only, while that for larceny was quite low also, at 31.7 per cent. But in respect of other indictable offences there was a detection rate of 77.4 per cent. Other indictable offences, of which there were less than 500, included indecent exposure, false imprisonment, public mischief, conspiracy and other offences of which there is no breakdown. Therefore the House will see that, in respect of serious offences against the person, there is quite a high detection rate, that without any period of detention.

Under the provisions of this Bill we are affording a detention period of six hours, with its extension for a further six hours, plus, of course, the eight-hour rest period, giving a total of 20 hours. I have not heard any argument supporting the need for a second period of six hours detention, particularly if we take the incidence of indictable offences in the current report of the Garda Commissioner where it is reported that serious offences against the person are detected at a high rate. That should be considered along with the point made by Deputy Woods, who argued that in non-serious cases the detention lasted for no more than two hours in most cases, I think in 60 per cent of cases.

The other point I should like to make is that, in detaining a person for six hours, the Garda are not limited in any way in the length of time during which they may question a person in the course of those six hours. They can commence questioning a person from the time of arrest and can continue to do so, if they so wish or see the necessity, for the full six hours. There is no requirement in the Bill to limit that in any way. Again, if the person is detained for a further six hours there is no limit to the questioning of that person which may take place for the full 12 hours.

The Minister in answer to Deputy Woods' case for not accepting the list of offences said that under the Offences Against the State Act, a garda before he arrests a person must be sure that the offence that he suspects the person of is listed under the Offences Against the State Act. That is so, provided the person appears before a court, but we know from statistics available that 90 per cent of those arrested under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act do not appear before a court. A garda arresting a person under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act is not required to tell the person the offence for which he is being arrested, simply that he is being arrested under the Offences Against the State Act. That detained person, if he comes before a court, cannot challenge the garda for false imprisonment because he was never informed of the offence of which he was suspected, therefore he cannot know if it was one of the offences listed. I see no grounds for the second six-hour detention period. The gardaí at the moment are quite successful, without detention, in detecting serious crime against the person, including murder, rape and so forth. I feel very strongly on this matter and I intend to press my amendment.

Acting Chairman

I am putting the question: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will those who are demanding a division please rise in their places?

Deputies De Rossa, Gregory-Independent and Mac Giolla rose.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

In accordance with Standing Order No. 59 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the journal of the proceedings of the Dáil.

Amendment declared lost.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I move amendment No. 9:

In page 4, line 21, before "superintendent" to delete "chief".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I move amendment No. 10:

In page 4, line 23, to delete "is of opinion" and substitute "has reasonable grounds for believing".

Amendment agreed to.

Dr. Woods

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 4, line 25, after the word "offence" to add the following:

"and the offence is one of treason, murder, rape, or an attempt or conspiracy to commit any such offence or is one to which this section applies and has been specified by regulation. Every regulation made under this subsection shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after such regulation is made and, if a resolution annulling such regulation is passed by either House of the Oireachtas within the next subsequent 21-days on which that House has sat after such regulation has been laid before it, such regulation shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under such regulation".

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): There are a number of factors in relation to this amendment. First, there is the point to which I referred earlier, that is, that a further list in the Bill followed by a subsequent list of crimes to be introduced by way of regulation would bring about a situation where the Garda at an operational level would be dealing with six or seven different lists of crimes. Secondly, if the Minister wished to evade the intent of the amendment, since there is no bar on him in the amendment as to what he could introduce by way of regulation, he could simply bring about the same situation by having certain crimes specified in the amendment and listing the rest of them in the regulations subsequently, those that would carry a five-year sentence.

This is not a matter of a Minister deciding to play fast and loose with the intent of the amendment. There could arise a position whereby the Minister would not risk excluding any offence because there would be the danger of leaving himself open subsequently to criticism by the public in the event of someone who was believed to have committed the offence in question in an aggravated form not being properly dealt with as a result of the exclusion. Either the initiating Minister, myself, or a subsequent Minister by way of regulation could extend that right up to the situation I am suggesting in the Bill where it would apply to five-year offences.

A third objection I would have to the amendment is that if the Garda are not given adequate time under the provisions of section 4 of this Bill — I consider six hours plus six to be an adequate time — there will be a strong temptation for them to use section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. If there is a doubt in their minds that a short period initially might not be sufficient, they might be tempted to arrest under the powers of the Offences Against the State Act, thereby allowing for a much longer period of detention. In addition, it is difficult to draw up a two-tier system on the basis of the seriousness of the offence. It would be easy to envisage a situation where the investigation of a very serious crime could be dealt with in a short period as a result of the crime not being complicated but there are certain forms of larceny offences — forgery, fraud and embezzlement, for example — which could be very complicated and which would require a much more lengthy period of questioning than would be necessary in the case, say, of some offences of rape or murder. Therefore, the question is not only one of the more serious offence being the one that always require the greatest amount of time for questioning.

In effect we are discussing, as we have already done on Committee Stage also, the scope of section 4 and the question of the circumstances in which the second moiety of six hours could be availed of by the Garda. While I realise the intent of the amendment tabled by Deputy Woods, I do not think it serves any special purpose and therefore I would ask him to withdraw it.

Dr. Woods

The Minister referred to the question of various lists but at an operational level those lists would be put together so that they would form one list only. It would be possible always to have, say, a pink list which would be the one dealing with this area. In other words, by way of colour coding one could have the lists available readily. Therefore, I do not visualise any real problem in that regard.

So far as trust in the Minister is concerned we were intending by way of this amendment to repose trust in the Minister since he is the one who is responsible to the people and who, by way of this amendment, would have the flexibility that would allow him to make the appropriate alterations at certain stages. We were trying to be helpful to him. We are anxious, too, to have carried through the principle that the second six hours would be related only to very serious offences which required this additional time in normal circumstances but the Minister is introducing a new element by suggesting on the one hand that in having to decide what the list would be he would be exposing himself to certain risks. In other words he would prefer that the House decided on what the list should be and that he would merely have to operate it or else leave it completely open and allow the Garda to decide on the grounds that the full scope of all offences coming within the five-year sentencing policy would be included and that consequently the Garda would have to decide whether there were reasonable grounds for proceeding. Presumably they would be deciding also whether it was reasonable in any case to proceed to the second detention period of six hours.

The question of the exposure to risk of the Minister in the making of such regulations or in the implementation of them is another aspect. I appreciate his saying that someone may then come back and say that he has the power to include X offence and that he should include it. In such circumstances I presume the Minister would include the power if it became necessary to do so or if it were indicated to him that it was necessary to bring in a regulation covering certain offences which have not been included.

There is the suggestion that section 30 might be used instead. This tends to indicate that powers sanctioned by the House are being used for purposes other than those for which they were intended. That is what we are trying to get at, to limit the second six hours to circumstances that are very serious.

I appreciate the difficulty of spelling out any list but it is possible to do so, even to select those additional areas that the Minister might consider necessary. I still say that this amendment essentially is good. I admit that it would require homework on the part of the Minister, the Department and the Garda to try to spell out those areas which are most important. If it transpires in the long run that that means that all the different offences are covered by the five years — there is no way in which that should be the case — then the Minister would of course be entitled to extend and we always recognised that. I recognised in putting down the amendment, that it was leaving the Minister in a position where he could extend it to the full extent. It was also an attempt to be helpful to the Minister, accepting that he would have the genuine interest of the people at large in mind when he would decide on any list in relation to the second six hours.

On the one hand I want to make the point very clearly as to what and how we feel about this; on the other hand I accept that the Minister has come a long way to meet us by inserting the reasonable grounds which we put down as an amendment on Committee Stage and that by so doing he has been very helpful in adding in that amendment and has met many of our objections in this respect. So, given the Minister's concern and his views on it, I would be reluctant to press him further. In any event, I know that the ultimate outcome of the situation if we vote on it now is just a matter of going through the procedure and having the matter voted down. I want the Minister to realise that the intention here is to be helpful, to limit the use of the second six-hour period to serious crimes. We are in the position of not having any background information to go on in that respect and we are obviously not in a position to give the Minister any greater list at this stage. I assume the Minister would be able to add to that list through his experience as he will be dealing with the situation as it develops and as the experience of the applications come into being. In view of the Minister's steps and particularly his introduction of the amendment proposed on Committee Stage in regard to the second six-hour period being based on reasonable grounds I am withdrawing the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I move amendment No. 12:

In page 4, to delete lines 29 to 31.

This amendment has already been debated.

Amendment agreed to.

Sitting suspended at 2.35 p.m. and resumed at 3.25 p.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 5 Jul 1984