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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 28 Jun 1988

Vol. 382 No. 9

Private Members' Business. - District Court Extradition procedures: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by Deputy Seán Barrett on Tuesday, 21 June 1988:
"That Dáil Éireann calls on the Government to review extradition procedures in the District Courts and in particular, to consider legislation to transfer cases brought under the Acts from District Court to Circuit Court."
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute:
"calls on the Government to review the provisions of the Extradition Act of 1965 and in particular, to consider whether in any proceedings under that Act, where the person arrested does not acquiesce in the making of such extradition order when brought before the District Court, the hearing of all matters relating to the making of such order should be before the High Court".
—(Deputy Colley.)

Deputy Roche is in possession. He has some six minutes left.

I doubt that I need all that time. I opened last week by making the point that there are few issues that are so often misconstrued — and deliberately so — in this country of ours as the vexed issue of extradition. Little did I know at that time how true those comments would prove to be. Members can imagine, given my contribution on a number of items in this House, my sense of amazement at reading during the weekend, in a piece of unsolicited junk mail that fell through my letter box, An Poblacht, that I had said in another forum that not only was I in favour of extradition but would willingly and happily extradite all or any of the Birmingham Six should the matter arise. Given my contributions here on the case of the freedom of those people, and the need for safeguards in our extradition laws, the printing of such a completely baseless mistruth illustrates the correctness of my opening remarks, the point being that this issue is one which is deliberately and consistently subjected to misleading comment.

Because the extradition issue is so frequently the subject of distortion by the forces of both extremes in the debate, by those who subscribe to the sort of rubbish trotted out in An Poblacht and by those who take the extreme Tory view that this is an island of at best, fellow travellers and at worst bloodthirsty extremists — a view which is evidently shared by a member of a Government that ran this country for a period in the seventies — I wonder at the timeliness of this debate. It has struck me that there are pros and cons in moving the issue to the Circuit Court and there is a case to be made, perhaps, for moving it to the High Court. Of the two, I would prefer the Circuit Court rather than the High Court. I wonder if Deputy Barrett has quite unwittingly supported those outside the State who from time to time question our motivation.

The point that joins us all together in the debate on this issue is that none of us shares a wish to see this part of this island, this jurisdiction, converted into a haven for murderers, terrorists and people who reject the great democratic principles on which our State is based. We may in a sense be underscoring some of the criticism which is being made of our Judiciary, particularly injudicious criticisms that have been made by Members of the British House of Commons and in the UK yellow press. It may be that we are unwittingly contributing a degree of credibility to those arguments. That is not the intention — I am not suggesting that it is. There is a danger, however, that that may be the outcome.

In the law as it exists at present there is provision for a review of the situation and of the operation of the extradition procedures. Whatever the strong arguments one way or the other, it strikes me that there may be a better time for us to review progress and the appropriateness of the procedures at the District Court.

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy, but his time is almost up.

I make those comments in a constructive way. I do not mean to be provocative or to question the good intentions of the Deputies who put forward this motion. While I can see that there is an argument to be made for moving such contested cases from the District Court, I wonder at the timeliness of the motion.

I can see no basis, and neither can the Labour Party, for a move to transfer the hearing of these extradition applications away from the District Court, either to the Circuit Court, as suggested by Deputy Barrett, or to the High Court, as suggested by Deputy Colley. These cases are dealt with perfectly well and perfectly adequately in the District Court; they have been for many years. The district justices are perfectly capable of handling these cases in a proper and efficient manner. They are trained and I hold them in the highest regard. The reasons that brought about this situation are not at all such as would warrant the introduction of this motion, or the passing of it by the Dáil.

The issue on extradition under the 1965 Act, as amended, is relatively simple. It has been pointed out in the High Court and in the Supreme Court that there are two issues to be determined by the district justice or whatever court may have seisin of the case: first, that the warrant is valid and in order; and second, that the person named in the warrant is the person who now stands before the court. There is no matter of major legal complexity involved there. It may be that some people, when they do not get the right result from a court, seek to change the court. It is strange, when one thinks of the case, that I referred to when we were debating the matter of a court case, where Mr. Justice Gannon of the High Court discharged an extradition warrant which had been granted by the District Court. Nothing is sought to be done about the decision of Mr. Justice Gannon. Apparently that is perfectly all right. The question of identification of a person who stands before the court as being the person named in the warrant is a matter of the law of evidence. Any judge, whether a district justice or a Circuit Court or High Court judge, will apply the law of evidence as it is to the case. Any British judge in a Crown Court or a Magistrate's Court would go about the matter in precisely the same way.

It is up to us, to the Oireachtas, to set whatever standards of evidential proof of identification we regard as adequate or proper. It is a matter for us to decide what degree of evidence of identification we want the courts to apply. If we set that marker and those guidelines down for the courts, the district justices will loyally apply the law, as they do in all these cases.

The standard which has been set in identification in these cases, set and established now by Mr. Justice Gannon's decision, is that identification is required from the British side to confirm that the person who stands before the court is the person that they want. That is a standard of evidence. People may think that it is too high a standard of evidence and perhaps it is; I do not know. That is a matter to be debated here and decided upon. An alternative possible standard of evidence would be to say that it will be sufficient if a senior Irish Garda officer says that, in his opinion, this is the person named on the warrant from his knowledge or that an official from the Attorney General's office would say so. That could be imposed by law as the standard of evidence which would be sufficient. If that is what we want, let us do it. If we are to decide that the opinion of a Garda officer on the identification question is to be acceptable, why does the Minister, with the consent of the House, which I am sure he would get, not bring in a short amending Bill to deal with the matter of evidence? The problem is one of the law of evidence and the standard of proof which is required in a matter of identification. That is the real issue here and the idea that one would change anything by moving the venue to the High Court makes no sense. Any judge will apply the law as he finds it and any decision of a district justice at present is subject to review by the High Court.

I am aware that the Attorney General took the decision to appeal the McVeigh case by way of case stated to the High Court. That should not have been done because the district justice in the McVeigh case gave the correct decision in accordance with the law. Perhaps some people do not like it: that is too bad, but judges very often give decisions which people do not like. However, you do not respond by saying that the matter should be taken out of the realm of the District Court. It casts an appalling reflection on the District Court and on the district justices who practise there which is totally unwarranted and doubly outrageous because district justices may not respond to the implications of the motion before the House, which is that District Courts and district justices are not competent to apply the law. I reject that suggestion because they are capable and well qualified——

The Deputy is being mischievous.

They are capable of applying the law on this issue but if some Members do not agree, do they consider that district justices are capable of applying it on other, more complicated issues? They are perfectly qualified to do so and if law reports are required, cases can and frequently are reported. Many of the District Court cases are reported in the journals and there is no rule which says that you cannot provide for written judgments in District Court cases.

District justices are not supplied with them.

Is that a reason for taking the matter out of the venue of the District Court? If that is the only problem, the matter need not be transferred to the High Court, just supply the reports to the district justices. However, it seems that the district justices are not the only people who are not supplied with them. Maybe the Attorney General is not being supplied with material because it appears he did not know about Mr. Justice Gannon's decision in a High Court case. If the implication is that High Court decisions are supplied and District Courts decisions are not, the Gannon decision gives the lie to that.

This motion approaches the problem from the wrong angle. The problem is one of evidence and, for some strange reason which I do not understand, we do not want to face up to it. Maybe we want a very high standard of identification on this issue, I do not know but if it is the case we should say so. Let us call a spade a spade and be above board.

If the Minister realistically wants to tackle and simplify the law of evidence dealing with this issue, the Labour Party will facilitate him. If he introduces a Bill it could go through the Dáil and Seanad in one day because it would be a very simple one. If he comes forward with a lesser standard of evidence of identification as being adequate we will assist him in every possible way. There will be no obstruction and no difficulty. At present the whole system is not working, which is unsatisfactory. Recently at Question Time, the Minister for Justice said that there had been no extradition since the 1987 Act was passed. That is not acceptable.

None has been refused either.

None has been effected——

Do not imply that the Act is not working.

Quite clearly, the Act was not working when applications were made and, for one reason or another, nobody has been extradited. The system is not working. Why argue about what is obvious to anyone? The issue is embroiled in litigation in the District Court and High Court. Deputy Barrett's solution is not the correct one but at least he attempted to solve the problem. However, his solution is born of frustration and it will not make any difference to the efficiency of the system whether it is in the High Court or the Circuit Court. Where will the great merit be in putting it in the High Court? After all, Mr. Justice Gannon discharged the warrant in the Cork case.

I do not want to be repetitive but the District Court is the proper venue for extradition warrants to be dealt with. There is no major complexity involved and to say that district justices are not competent to deal with it casts a reflection on all the work they do. The way to deal with the matter is to set the standard of evidence by law and make ir clear so that there will be no difficulty for the District Court in all cases or on appeal to the Circuit Court and the High Court. Maybe there should be an appeals procedure to the Circuit Court rather that by way of case stated. Whatever court it come to, standards ought to be laid down and a short Bill on the evidential point is required to meet the problem. For these reasons, we will be opposing the motion and the amendment.

I would like to commence, a Cheann Comhairle, by saying that I am quite prepared to take on board what you said about not commenting on any specific extradition case that is before the courts at present.

Extradition in one form or another has been with us for over 100 years. Arising out of the Quinn case in the Supreme Court in the sixties, the Extradition Bill, 1965, was introduced by the Taoiseach who was Minister for Justice at the time. Part III of that Bill, which subsequently became the 1965 Act, referred specifically to extradition arrangements between this country and Britain and Northern Ireland. That part of the Act continued to some extent the special relationship which had existed previously whereby warrants from one jurisdiction are backed in the other.

By and large, it can be argued that the Act has operated well since it was introduced. The vast majority of extradition cases which come before our courts are dealt with in such a manner that ensures that extradition takes place where appropriate. The same is true of extradition from Britain to here.

For example, it is relevant to say here that Deputies and the public in general should realise the beneficial effects to both countries of extradition. For instance, the number of perpetrators of serious crimes involving robbery, drugs, fraud and even murder who have fled this jurisdiction to Britain hoping to lose themselves in the large population there and who have subsequently been returned for trial here is quite large. These are the routine extradition cases and, as I said earlier, such extradition arrangements work well.

I would like to echo some of the sentiments expressed here both last week and tonight about some foreign comments on our courts and extradition arrangements, particularly in some sections of the British press. There is no shortage of amateur lawyers who claim a knowledge and expertise of extradition arrangements. It would be fair to say that there has been a great amount of ill-informed comment written about the subject over the past year of two. Such comments do nothing to encourage the climate of co-operation which should exist between civilized countries in combating international terrorism.

Turning to the specifics of the motion by Deputy Barrett of Fine Gael and the amendment by Deputy Colley of the Progressive Democrats, I would point out to the House that the Government are already committed to reviewing our extradition procedures and are quite prepared and willing to consider these proposals in the context of that review.

Deputies should also recall that section 6 of the Extradition (Amendment) Act 1987 provides that the Government shall make a report to each House of the Oireachtas in each year, beginning in 1989, on the operation of the Part III of the Extradition Act 1965. That section provides a mechanism for a review of the extradition arrangements we operate with Britain and Northern Ireland. That review must be undertaken before the end of the current year in order to enable the Government to fulfill their statutory duty to submit the report to each House of the Oireachtas "as soon as may be" after 1 January 1989 in accordance with the terms of the section.

The provision which was made in the 1987 Amendment Act for a review of the operation of Part III stemmed from the Government's desire to ensure that the new arrangements provided for under the Act were carefully monitored by the authorities here. That monitoring is being undertaken with a view to ensuring that extradition continues to operate in a fair and proper way. That desire was evident in the Taoiseach's speech in introducing the Extradition (Amendment) Bill in the Dáil on 27 November last year when he stated at column 2129 in the Official Report:

...it is our intention to institute a new regime of monitoring and observation, and to give that process a statutory backing. The legislation will provide that in future the Attorney General will have a statutory obligation to prepare and submit to the Government an annual report on the operation of extradition arrangements and the cases that have taken place under the arrangements in the previous twelve months.

That review was originally to be confined to the operation of sections 44A and 44B — those new sections empowering the Attorney General to direct that a warrant would not be endorsed unless satisfied of certain matters — and to take place in the context of a report to be submitted by the Attorney General to the Government. The extent and nature of the review was subsequently widened as a result of a Report Stage amendment to embrace a review of the operation of the entire arrangements under Part III of the Act and to provide for the report to be made by the Government to each House of the Oireachtas rather than by the Attorney General to the Government. Those changes represented the Government's response to Opposition amendments on Committee Stage in the Dáil which I accepted in principle as being in keeping with the Taoiseach's earlier undertakings in this regard.

The review that is to take place later this year will therefore consider our extradition arrangements with Britain and Northern Ireland in their entirety. It has also been the Government's intention from the start that the review would identify any shortcomings that may exist. In this connection I would refer Deputies once more to the Taoiseach's opening statement on Second Stage of the Extradition (Amendment) Bill 1987 where, in the context of the new arrangements being provided for in that Act, he stated at column 1987 of the Official Report on 27 November 1987:

I also wish to make it clear that should it emerge after a period of twelve months that these arrangements are not working satisfactorily and persons whose extradition is fully justified can evade the law, the Government will bring forward revised proposals to deal with such a situation.

Neither the terms of the motion nor the amendment proposed to it have reference to the provisions of the 1987 Amendment Act. The Government's commitment, however, to introduce amending legislation should that prove necessary, is not limited to the procedures introduced by the 1987 Act but extends to all aspects of our extradition arrangements. I assure the House that should the review indicate the need for amending legislation, the Government will bring forward the necessary Bill.

Turning now to the terms of the motion and the amendment, the Government are certainly willing to consider these suggestions. It should be borne in mind, however, that the implementation of the suggestion to switch extradition applications to either the Circuit Court or the High Court would have implications for the workloads and the staffing of the courts and also, of course, have serious implications for the persons who are the subject of extradition applications which must be carefully assessed.

Some Deputies on the Opposition benches suggested a two-tier system whereby persons who would acquiesce to their own extradition applications could be dealt with in the District Court and only those cases where the extradition application would be opposed would be referred to the High Court. I cannot at this stage give a considered reaction to that suggestion. It may have constitutional implications. I am not sure that it is feasible to have one case dealt with in the District Court and to switch another identical case to the High Court merely because the person who is the subject of the proceedings is taking a different attitude to the application. This is something which would have to be considered by the Government, acting on the advice of the Attorney General, but I can give the House an undertaking that the suggestions made in the course of the debate will be fully considered by the Government.

(Limerick East): I understand I have approximately 20 minutes.

That is right, yes.

(Limerick East): I would like to divide my time with Deputy McCartan who has expressed a wish to share it.

What time is the debate due to finish?

It is due to finish at 8.15 p.m.

Then we have 35 minutes.

The Deputy has 30 minutes at his disposal, sharing with Deputy McCartan.

(Limerick East): There is no subject of a political nature to which we have addressed our minds over the last number of years which is more misrepresented and which gives rise to greater confusion than extradition. There is an impression created both in this country and in others that there had been no extradition between this jurisdiction and the UK until the introduction of the 1987 Act. That view is widespread even among sensible people who are citizens of this country. It is certainly widespread in Great Britain and so widespread in Northern Ireland that an impression has been created that the Republic of Ireland is an extended safe haven for terrorists who wander freely through our jurisdiction. It is also a widespread perception there that there is no redress in the courts and no possibility of extraditing terrorists. It is also widely believed in Northern Ireland that the attempts of the previous Government to put extradition arrangements in place, in their opinion for the first time, were frustrated by the Government who are now in power. This is to completely misunderstand the situation. It is also a misunderstanding which is deliberate on the part of many people, and many of the people who propound these notions of extradition are in a position to know that the views they express are incorrect.

There has been movement of people accused of crime between this jurisdiction and many parts of Great Britain for a long time. To my knowledge there has never been a national police force in Great Britain and because of the structure of the police force, organised into county police forces, the moving of a person accused of a crime from one county to another was always an issue. This was done by backing of warrants. If the chief constable in one English county wanted a person who was in another county he sent a warrant and that warrant was backed by the other county police force. That was the situation here prior to 1922.

The Royal Irish Constabulary police force for this country was, in effect, a county police force from the British point of view and warrants which were sent by police forces on the mainland were backed here and suspects were produced simply by the backing of warrants, without recourse to the courts. This sort of arrangement lasted subsequent to the foundation of the State. The arrangements for extradition between ourselves and Great Britain were not extradition arrangements at all. They were simply a continuation of the backing of warrants procedures that predated 1922. After the warrant was issued in Warwickshire and it arrived at Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park it was sent to the appropriate district here and the warrant was backed but there was no formal extradition proceedings.

As the Minister pointed out this informal arrangement came unstuck with a particular case in the sixties. The present Taoiseach introduced the formal extradition arrangements with Great Britain as part of the Extradition Act, 1965. I understand it was the present Tánaiste who put it through the House because an election intervened between the publication and the implementation of the Bill. Speaking from memory I think both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were involved and eventually it was introduced by the Tánaiste rather than the Taoiseach when he was Minister for Justice.

In those arrangements which were formalised, the tradition of making an exemption of politically related crime or politically related offences was continued. This was reasonable enough. The tradition in liberal democratic countries in the 19th and 20th centuries was that one did not send political activists back to dictatorial regimes. If someone was subject to a dictatorial regime in continental Europe and got as far as Great Britain or Ireland, in effect they were political activists who would be at risk of persecution if returned to a particular regime and one did not do it. The political exception for extradition — or the backing of warrants in our case — was always maintained up to 1965 and was formalised in the 1965 arrangement. There was nothing unusual about it.

Unlike what certain spokespersons both in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland say, this was not treating Great Britain as the least favoured nation. This was quite normal around the world and remained normal up to the seventies. Then the Irish Judiciary moved in the same direction as judiciaries all over Europe and in the US and instead of looking at the particular motivation of an act they moved to look at the act itself. This is the big change which has taken place in the courts. If one was parading for a particular cause in 1970 and one's extradition was sought, the court would look at the motivation behind the march: "Why were you putting up the poster, why were you marching on the street, why were you handing out leaflets"? If the answer was that you were doing these things because you were supporting political activity then you could not be extradited. The courts looked exclusively at the motivation behind the political activity but they did not look at the nature of the political act.

In a number of key cases in the late seventies and early eighties our courts decided that instead of looking at what motivated people involved in political activity they would look at the nature of the act. In common with judges all over Europe, they decided that certain actions were so outrageous, were so dehumanising and were so callous that one could not deem certain activity as political in democratic countries. It was by looking at the nature of the act rather than what motivated somebody that the changes took place. In these cases which are being quoted widely here, people were extradited even though the defence on their behalf would have suggested that the activity in which they were involved was political.

It was difficult to know from the initial cases how wide the new interpretation of the law would be. It was difficult to decide whether the umbrella which sheltered those people involved in acts which were deemed to be political from extradition was removed completely. What became clear very quickly was that certain terrorist activities involving the use of guns and explosives and murder — no matter what the cause — would no longer be deemed political in our courts. Instead of looking at the motivation of the act, the nature of the act was looked at and consequently, the courts extradited.

I think this House treated the courts rather badly for a long time because they left them to interpret the law and to keep in parallel with European jurisprudence but they did not give them the protection of amending legislation. There was a responsibility on this House to do so and it took until 1986 to do that. In effect, what happened with the Extradition Act, 1986, which became the 1987 Act, was that the kind of decisions which were made by the Supreme Court were enshrined in law for the first time. The Houses of the Oireachtas, as well as the courts, now express the view and define the law to indicate that we consider that there are certain terrorist activities which cannot deem to be political and, consequently, will not get the protection of this jurisdiction because the actions are so heinous that they will not get any protection from our jurisdiction or from our courts.

I think it was time we moved in that direction and by so moving we were in a position to sign the European Convention on Terrorism. It was not before time. I regret we had such difficulty in putting that legislation through this House. I regret that eventually we got it through only on the basis of a bad compromise which deferred the implementation of the Act for 12 months. I regret there was change of Government in the intervening period which made the implementation of that Act far more difficult last December than it did the previous December.

There is no doubt in my mind that the opposition of the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party to that Extradition Act represented their considered views. There is no doubt in my mind that the Taoiseach and the Government had no intention of implementing the Extradition Act, 1987, from 1 December of last year. I have a clear memory of Fianna Fáil backbenchers and Fianna Fáil Ministers preparing the ground for that switch in public opinion during last autumn. I recall hearing Ministers in the first and second official languages indicating clearly that the Government would not go ahead with the Extradition Act, 1987, and would not make it effective from 1 December 1987. I remember clearly Deputy Blaney's claims that he had a commitment from the Taoiseach to allow the Extradition Act wither away. I believe he had that commitment and that that was the intention. Had it not been for Enniskillen, the Taoiseach would not have changed his stance once more and attempted then to pacify his backbenchers with the safeguard legislation on which we had such debate in the autumn session.

The mood created by Fianna Fáil and by the Government in that period last autumn gave rise to great problems. They created an anti-extradition mood among their own backbenchers and among their own supporters throughout the country and that has spread into the general public and has added and given rise to enormous confusion. I suggest that that confusion is being represented in the kind of decisions which have given rise to this debate. There is a responsibility on the Government to ensure that the new arrangements work. It is not good enough to come into the House and say that while no extradition has taken place since the implementation of the Government's Act that no extradition has been prevented. It seems to me that no extradition will take place for the next 18 months or two years. No matter which court starts the process, the first case, and maybe the second and third, will go all the way up to the Supreme Court and as all the appeal procedures are invoked I do not think we will see an extradition from this jurisdiction for a terrorist offence within the next 18 months or two years.

I must say — and I exempt the Minister for Justice from this because I know he shares many of the views we are expressing here — there are people in his party who are delighted there will be no extradition made effective for the next 18 months or two years. There is a deep suspicion of what motivated the Government when they brought in the amending legislation last December and when they spread and sowed confusion about extradition throughout the country. We must remember this was done against a background of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, various programmes on television and the various articles in newspapers which cast doubt on the fairness of the British courts to Irish citizens who were brought before them.

To put it at its minimum, the Government did nothing to ease the fears of the ordinary citizens of this country in that respect. The anti-extradition stream of opinion in the population was channelled into the anti-British stream arising from these decisions and the two have been running fairly strongly ever since and there is no doubt in my mind that they are influencing attitudes to extradition. There is a responsibility on the Government when this review the Minister referred to in his speech tonight comes up to make sure that at long last things are put on a proper basis and unless and until serious questions arise extradition runs smoothly. It was never intended that it would be the complicated affair it seems to be now. It seems to us on this side of the House that as long as it remains in the District Court where worthy district justices doing their job are faced with a whole gallery of legal experts coming down from Dublin and descending upon them with all their reputation, expertise, wigs and gowns, we will not get it to run smoothly again.

Twelve months ago I would have said there was no problem in having the District Court decide this issue in the first instance and if there was an appeal procedure to be invoked, let it be invoked. I have serious doubts about it now, not because of the nature of the District Court or because of the district justices who man that court, but because of the atmosphere that has been created over there quite deliberately when the Taoiseach intended to undermine the 1987 Extradition Act and when his fullest intention, in my opinion, was to bring in amending legislation to ensure that it did not become effective on 1 December last. It is quite clear to me and many Members of this House that the legislation he brought in was really second-thought legislation, that the safeguards introduced were merely a compromise to satisfy the ire of backbenchers who had been stimulated within the party to oppose extradition. While Cabinet Ministers may be able to switch off their emotions and turn their feelings around in a very short space, it is more difficult to calm down backbenchers once you have wound them up in the first instance and set them loose on the cumann circuit through the three months of autumn.

It is not enough to say, as the Minister said in his speech, that we have our difficulties but it is coming right. It is not coming right. Before we moved to provide the protection and guidance necessary for the Judiciary by writing what we meant into the law, it was going better. It was going better when we shirked our responsibility and it was solely a matter for the courts. Now, when the Oireachtas has decided what should happen, because the signals from the Government have been so confused, there is confusion in the streets and in the courts and people do not know where they stand. For the first time there is truth in the charge that it is not possible to extradite people from this jurisdiction if they are accused of terrorist offences. There is beginning to be truth in that charge for the first time in the last seven or eight years.

Will moving it into the Circuit Court make any difference?

(Limerick East): There are issues other than the movement to the Circuit Court which arise here and are being discussed in the context of this motion. Deputy Barrett is to be complimented on giving the House the opportunity to address those issues. He has not put forward his views on the Circuit Court in a dogmatic fashion. I heard him introducing the topic and he wanted to hear the views of everybody else. There is a responsibility on us to ensure that extradition works, that our extradition laws are transparent and effective and not devices to spancel either the courts or the administration, to ensure that people who are guilty of the most heinous crimes are kept in this jurisdiction. That is not the purpose of what we have all been at, but it seems that the kind of commitment given by the Taoiseach to Deputy Blaney that the 1987 Extradition Act would wither away is beginning to take on a certain slant in this House and many of us are beginning to have serious doubts about the motivation of the Taoiseach on extradition. I would like the Minister, if he gets the opportunity, at the very end to comment again to tell us when he expects in the normal course of events that the first extradition case under the 1987 Act will be processed through our courts and when he expects the first person to be extradited will be in either Northern Ireland or Great Britain. It seems to me that his Administration could be out of Government for quite some time before that has gone through the courts. I pose the question: is this deliberate? Is this the intention? Was the intention to entangle the extradition procedure in technicalities so that it got nowhere?

Deputy Taylor argues very strongly that moving the consideration in the first instance to the Circuit Court will achieve very little. That may be so, but anything which shortens the procedure, anything which works to surmount some of the delays which are now built into the system is worth looking at. I support Deputy Barrett's suggestion, but I think there is also great merit in the suggestion made by Deputy Colley as I understand it. The Minister has said he will look at this and I welcome that commitment. There may be constitutional difficulties, as he says, in treating two similar cases in two different manners. If somebody acquiesces to extradition it is disposed of in the District Court but if the person does not acquiesce it goes to the High Court. I do not think there is a problem with that. If one consents then the District Court can deal with the problem and if one does not consent, without looking at any of the merits or anything else, it goes straight to the High Court on appeal. That is probably more effective than the present arrangement. If there are serious rooted principle objections to what Deputy Barrett is saying, that is a very good option also.

The last point I make tonight is that the present arrangements under the 1987 Act as amended are not satisfactory. Nobody has been extradited. I take the Minister's point that nobody has been prevented by acts of the Attorney General from being extradited either, but nobody has been extradited. Worse than that, those of us who have any awareness of the legal system can see now it is unlikely anyone would be extradited for 18 months or two years. I do not think that was the intention of this House when we put the amendment to the 1987 Act through this House last December, and I will be surprised if this House does not express that view very strongly when the Act is reviewed in 12 months' time. It points again to the wisdom of Deputy Barrett that he moved that amendment last year so that after 12 months we could evaluate the effectiveness of the Act. If we were to evaluate it tonight we would say it has been very effective in frustrating extradition but certainly has done nothing to facilitate it.

I want to give time to Deputy McCartan as we arranged, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, before you came into the House.

It is after a quarter to eight now so he will get four minutes.

(Limerick East): It is longer than that.

I am looking at the Ceann Comhairle's notes. Ordinarily Deputy Noonan would finish at 7.56 p.m.

(Limerick East): I think the arrangement was Deputy Barrett would be called at 8 p.m. and Deputy McCartan would take whatever time there was between my sitting down and 8 p.m., which is ten minutes.

The view of the Chair is that if at the termination of the 30 minutes somebody was offering from this side and anybody else was to be called, in so far as nobody seems to be offering——

The understanding was as Deputy Noonan said.

That makes life easier for the Chair.

I am grateful to Deputy Noonan and to the Minister for their aid and for the opportunity to comment briefly on this issue. I find it a remarkable turn of events that tonight we have so much time and opportunity to discuss the issue of extradition and issues relating to recent problems which appear to have arisen in the administration of the law, when tomorrow the House is being asked to take two motions without debate. We are being asked on the Order of Business tomorrow to agree, without debate, to the terms of an agreement for extradition to Australia. It may be late in the day because Mr. Trimbole is long gone and very few people know exactly where he is. Nonetheless, it is important that we have an extradition agreement with that country. However, it is equally important that the House knows the terms of that agreement and we should know what facilities will be made available should anyone be sought in Australia for offences alleged to have been committed there. I have not heard a voice outside this House which is so vociferous about what might happen to a person extradited to Great Britain or Northern Ireland to face trial, saying anything about the rights of prima facie case of sufficient inquiry or whatever else might arise should anyone be sought in Australia.

Even more interesting, tomorrow there is a very curious motion which, for the life of me, I cannot understand. It says:

That Dáil Éireann approves the terms of the European Convention on Extradition done at Paris on 13th December, 1957, as laid before the House on 27th June, 1988.

Listening to the debates on amending legislation during the past year, I have always understood that Ireland has long been a party to the European Convention on Extradition, 1957. When The Workers' Party advanced the cause of prima facie case as an integral prerequisite and the only effective means of addressing people's concerns as to why a person was sought on extradition abroad, we were told it would not be in keeping with our agreement on extradition of 1957 and that it would, of time and necessity, require this country to withdraw from that agreement if that idea was pushed in the House. It appears from tomorrow's Order of Business that we are not a full party to that agreement and tomorrow we are being asked to take that Convention and accept it into domestic law without one word being spoken in this House. I find that remarkable.

I take this opportunity to commend Deputy Barrett for putting forward this motion if for no other reason than it gives me the opportunity to point out what I believe is a ridiculous situation which does little, if anything, to assist the public to appreciate what is going on in this House. The motion is welcome because it affords us the opportunity to highlight and discuss some of the recent perceived shortcomings in the operation of extradition.

Deputy Noonan put the issue correctly when he said there is nothing wrong with the law. The law is there, but it has been developed in an unsatisfactory way by the courts — almost abandoned by the Legislature — who were almost forced to legislate for us by bringing into domestic law by judicial pronouncements the terms of the European Convention Against Terrorism, with the Legislature, in time, coming to grips with that international agreement. As I understand it, the law is satisfactory although it is achieved by a not too satisfactory mechanism. The problem rests with the political uncertainty, particularly that of the Fianna Fáil Party in Government. The weakness they have shown in the face of clear political demand culminated in the second amendment of the 1987 Act and did more harm to the law with regard to extradition than any other legislation. I am talking about the implementation of what we have described many times as a hybrid notion in extradition law, that is, the process of inquiry and collaboration between the Attorneys General of the two Administrations and the search for the notion of a sufficient case laid on some sort of documentary evidence.

We believe that had there been consistency and strength of principle on the part of the Fianna Fáil Party in standing up to the campaign of Sinn Féin and of their allies and sympathisers in the Fianna Fáil Party, we would not have all this confusion or the introduction of hybrid notions into the law, nor would we have had the period of interregnum, or break, in the smooth administration which has existed between the two jurisdictions with regard to extradition.

The point has to be made again that extradition has been there long before the 1978 legislation. It has been a standard feature of the administration of justice in this country and in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has run smoothly over the years and has worked effectively, and will continue to do so. Unfortunately, the opportunity given by Fianna Fáil to the anti-extradition committee, the front organisation of Sinn Féin on this issue has been most regrettable and the break in the smooth operation by the introduction of hybrid notions has done more damage than anything else to the smooth running of the law.

This motion seeks to address that fundamental problem by suggesting that the shortcomings and the difficulties lie with the District Court and the administration of justice in those courts. We reject that for two reasons. In regard to recent decisions, we have stated that the district justice made the correct decision on the evidence available to him. This matter is subject to appeal and I will not go into it further. We made that point previously and it must be restated here. The district justice is not to be blamed. The District Court is not to be blamed for the hiccups that exist. The law is satisfactory and clearcut. The requirement for identification, and proper and adequate identification is the fundamental first question posed to any court with regard to an extradition application. We must ensure that the British authorities can prove that the person sitting in the dock is the person they want. Identification should not be dependent on some prison officer from Portlaoise or Northern Ireland who says he knows Mr. McVeigh well and, yes, his name is Patrick McVeigh——

You must understand that——

I am sorry, I slipped. Time is valuable and I appreciate what you are saying. I should not have drifted. The court must be sure that the person sitting in the dock is the person named. It is not satisfactory to make the argument that there was a secondary mechanism. The rules are there, the evidence must be produced and the case can then proceed. My argument is that we should be expanding the District Court because it is the tribunal which is most democratic, easily accessible, local and susceptible to public views and opinions. It is a court which must be enhanced with more investment and more of them should be established rather than closed, as I understand the Government proposal. In addition, District Court officers who are in a position to serve the public who seek access to these courts, must be more accessible. That is our approach. On the one hand, we do not seek to draw criticism on the court but to enhance it and improve its conditions and facilities; on the other hand, if more time and resources are put into the mechanisms at bureaucratic level, I do not think we will have any further problems in dealing with the question of extradition.

The extradition process must be allowed stand, as it has in the past, as a typical, normal judicial practice. It does not require new amending legislation. We have tinkered enough with it. Let it settle and get the administrative processes working properly and I do not think we will then have the difficulties which have bedevilled the system recently.

I thank Deputies who have contributed to this debate. Most of them endeavoured to be constructive but some, as usual, endeavoured to play politics with a very serious issue. I put forward a motion which deals with a very serious matter and worded it in such a way as to allow for suggestions to come forward. I was not dogmatic in my approach. I was extremely annoyed on the first evening of the debate that the Government did not see fit to send in a Minister or a Minister of State to reply to me. I accept that the Minister for Justice had to be away, but I felt it was an insult to me and to this House that Deputy Ahern, a backbencher, was lobbed in to play politics with what I regard as a serious issue. I have to say that his contribution was contemptible in the extreme. He continually misquoted me. If he had gone to the trouble of reading my speech——

I listened to Deputy Barrett's speech.

Please do not cause any more trouble. Can I have the protection of the Chair?

I did not get much protection.

Deputy Ahern will not interrupt and Deputy Barrett will address me, not Deputy Ahern.

I am replying to the debate. Despite my attempt to outline various reasons for transferring the initial hearing of an extradition case from the District Court to the Circuit Court and my explaining in great detail that we were not casting any aspersions on the integrity or the right of a district justice to take a decision as he or she sees fit and that we were not criticising any decision taken by a district justice, some people have claimed that Fine Gael are having a go at district justices. We heard it from Deputy Taylor tonight.

Anybody who fools himself into believing that extradition is working must be going around with his eyes and ears closed. Deputy Swift stated in his contribution that he would rather be before a district justice than the entire House of Lords. I wonder if these responsible public representatives realise the effect of such irresponsible statements on the tens of thousands of young Irish people who have been forced to emigrate to find work in the United Kingdom and on the millions of Irish people who have settled there in past years. Do they realise the antagonism being generated among British people, from the taxi driver to the magistrate, against Irish people because of this continual harping by irresponsible politicians on this side of the Irish Sea and on the other side of it about the administration of justice? I do not accept that the courts in Britain are continually unfair to Irish people, nor do I accept that the courts here make decisions which are anti-British or that politicians are taking decisions because they are anti-British. I do not accept any of that rubbish. I warn against this irresponsible talk which is affecting the lives of ordinary Irish people living in Great Britain, earning a living and raising a family there and meeting their neighbours on a daily basis. Their lives are becoming intolerable because of this irresponsibility.

It is nonsense for people to tell me that extradition is working well since the introduction of the Extradition (Amendment) Act, 1987. Like Deputy Noonan, I must exclude the Minister for Justice from this. Actions speak louder than words. He has held that office since 1977, except for the period 1982 to 1987, and he has realised the damage this is doing. Unfortunately within his own party there is a different group who forced him and the Taoiseach to bring in legislation in December 1987 which was completely unwarranted. There were in place at that time administrative arrangements between the British and Irish Governments which were working very well. There was no evidence whatsoever that these administrative arrangements had broken down. There was no animosity between the law officers of the United Kingdom and the law officers of this country. There was no shred of evidence of a need for this Extradition (Amendment) Act, 1987, which was forced on the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice because of the wild men on the backbenches of Fianna Fáil. Let us not fool ourselves. They come out every so often to wave the green, white and orange flag but they are doing irreparable damage to this country and to the relationship we must have with our nearest neighbours. They are also doing irreparable damage to the Irish men and women in London, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere in Britain. I appeal to people to be extremely careful in what they say about the administration of justice in Great Britain. They are forgetting the millions of Irish people who are living there.

If we have complaints, we have the Anglo-Irish Agreement, diplomatic relations and Ministers who meet their counterparts through the EC on a regular basis. We have contacts which we can make to get things changed and we can make representations properly to see that Irish people get a fair crack of the whip. All these avenues are open to us and we should use them rather than bring in legislation to destroy the existing administrative arrangements.

I do not make any excuses for wanting to get out of this country people who committed crimes, whether in Northern Ireland or in Great Britain, of a nature that any civilised society would be ashamed of. I make no apologies whatsoever about it. Anybody who plants a bomb which kills five British soldiers after a "fun run" or kills ordinary men and women in Enniskillen or plants a bomb on a school bus is not civilised. Such people do not deserve the protection of democracy. People who tell me that we should fuddy duddy about whether these people should be extradited have a different attitude to mine. If somebody planted a bomb in the middle of Dublin which blew off my daughter's legs and then skipped across the Irish Sea to Birmingham or Manchester or across the Border to Enniskillen, I would be as irate as are many people in Northern Ireland and Britain if that person was walking the streets and could not be brought back to face justice due to some technicality. If somebody raped my daughter and skipped across to Hull or Shrewsbury or some place I would be very irate if I thought they would not be brought back here to face an Irish judge in an Irish court. If we want to live in a civilised society we have to have these arrangements that are seen to work and are capable of working. One cannot have a situation where somebody walks out of a courthouse on a technicality.

I am not saying that all of these things would stop if these cases were shifted from the District Court into the Circuit Court. But I am certain that the environment of the Circuit Court is a far better place to hear these cases than a crowded district court in some part of rural Ireland when every day of the week Deputies come in here to complain about the conditions district justices have to tolerate on a daily basis. Does the world press hone in on some small town in Ireland and its broken down building with a district justice with a string of cases to hear and with, stuck in the middle, a serious extradition case involving some terrorist who has blown the legs off some unfortunate, innocent human being, whether in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland, who will walk out of that court on a technicality?

That is no way to deal with civilised society. It was summed up in an editorial in the Irish Independent of 16 June, headed “Savagery”, where it said that while people get worried about what happened in Gibraltar or agonise over technicalities of extradition the provisionals murder or plan murders and that until they are rooted out of our system they will murder again, a murder machine out of control. That is the reality. Those are the people we are dealing with, common murderers in the majority of cases that I am concerned about in relation to extradition. These are people who do not respect democracy, who do not respect our laws who do not recognise our courts and whose only aim is to overthrow the democratic system which we cherish. I make no apologies for getting those people before courts to face justice whether here or in Great Britain. I make no apology for seeing to it that people have adequate safeguards against being shipped abroad without any evidence that they committed a crime; of course we need safeguards but those safeguards have been there and will be there in the future.

The best advice I can give to this House when the extradition amendment comes up for review at the end of this year is to throw it out the door and get back to a situation where our Attorney General and the Minister for Justice can meet their counterparts in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain and work out an arrangement whereby safeguards are in place, safeguards that can be changed if necessary without having to face the interpretation of the law and whereby we can get people back to Great Britain and to Northern Ireland to face the courts there for dastardly crimes.

In the meantime, for the sake of civilisation, for the sake of democracy and for the sake of our system I appeal to the Government to consider over the next couple of months whether the District Court is the best place to hear these cases initially and to consider the suggestion I have put forward in relation to the Circuit Court. I listened carefully to Deputy Colley who was constructive in her approach to this motion and made a case for the District Court in cases where the person acquiesced in the crime they are purported to have committed. There may be some merit in what Deputy Colley has said. I would like the Government, in the course of the consideration of this whole problem, to take into account her contribution also.

There has been nothing in this debate that has convinced me I was wrong to put forward this motion for discussion or that there is anything wrong with the suggestion I am making. I appeal in particular to the responsible Deputies in this House that while we make speeches about Northern Ireland and about extradition and the whole problem of terrorism, we should remember at all times that we have also a responsibility to the millions of Irish men and women living in Great Britain today, earning a living there, who have to live under the British system and face the courts there and when they do, we hope they get a fair crack of the whip. We would hope that they would not be the subject of ridicule when they get into a taxi or when they go to their place of work because of the attitude being adopted by some people in this country towards Great Britain.

I would like to conclude by recommending to the House that it supports the motion I have put forward. It is deliberately worded the way it is to allow for flexibility. I would ask the Government in particular to take on board the suggestions I have made and also to take into account the suggestion made by Deputy Colley on behalf of the Progressive Democrats.

I want to tell the Minister we will not forget about this. It is not a question that will fade away. If the Government are not prepared to do something there is another route open to us which we intend to follow.

On a point of order, would it be in order for the House to agree to add, after the last word in the Fine Gael motion, the words "or, alternatively, the High Court"?

That would require a different discussion.

Would it be in order if the House were in agreement?

Ordinarily we do not have 11th or 12th hour changes. It is now past the time at which I should put the question on amendment No. 1 in your name and I intend proceeding with that.

It is on that point of order that I rise before you put that amendment. It might prove to be unnecessary. I would ask you to ask the House would it be in agreement.

I have no objection.

I have no objection either.

It is all right if there is unanimity in the House. Naturally the Chair would welcome that unanimity on everything but, unfortunately, it does not obtain. If that request by Deputy Colley is not going to lead to acrimony, of course, the Chair has no option but to accept it.

Thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Would you, for the purpose of the record here, indicate again what is proposed?

It is proposed to add after the words "Circuit Court" on the Fine Gael motion the words "or, alternatively, the High Court".

I take it from Deputy Colley that, in these circumstances, she is withdrawing amendment No. 1.

That is correct.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The new question to be put is: "That Dáil Éireann calls on the Government to review extradition procedures in district courts and in particular to consider legislation to transfer cases brought under the Act from district courts to circuit courts or alternatively, to the High Court". Iad sin atá i bhfábhar na tairisceana sin, abraidís tá.

Deputies

Tá.

Iad sin atá ina haghaidh, abraidís níl.

andQuinn: Níl.

Sílim go bhfuil an tairiscint rite.

Vótáil.

Vótáil.

The motion is agreed. You do not have a vote when the motion is agreed.

The amendment is agreed. We did not agree the motion. You are only just putting the motion. How could I agree it?

I did not hear Deputy Mervyn Taylor indicate that he was against the motion.

I answered "Níl" to your question.

So did I.

I have no objection to the amendment being made, but I am objecting to the motion as amended.

You are perfectly entitled to that but Deputy Mervyn Taylor can take it from me, and indeed Deputy McCartan, that if the volume used in the word "níl" did not carry to me I cannot help it. If the Deputies are indicating it is "níl" now and go bhfuil siad ag iarraidh vótáil, it is my pleasure to call a vótáil. I can only act on what I hear, not on what people presume me to hear.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 114; Níl, 16.

  • Abbott, Henry.
  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Andrews, David.
  • Barrett, Michael.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Begley, Michael.
  • Birmingham, George.
  • Boland, John.
  • Boylan, Andrew.
  • Brady, Gerard.
  • Brady, Vincent.
  • Brennan, Matthew.
  • Brennan, Séamus.
  • Browne, John.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Ray.
  • Byrne, Hugh.
  • Calleary, Seán.
  • Carey, Donal.
  • Clohessy, Peadar.
  • Colley, Anne.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Conaghan, Hugh.
  • Connolly, Ger.
  • Cooney, Patrick Mark.
  • Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
  • Coughlan, Mary T.
  • Cowen, Brian.
  • Keating, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Geraldine.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • Kirk, Séamus.
  • Kitt, Michael P.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lawlor, Liam.
  • Leonard, Jimmy.
  • Leyden, Terry.
  • Lowry, Michael.
  • Lynch, Michael.
  • Lyons, Denis.
  • McCoy, John S.
  • McCreevy, Charlie.
  • McDowell, Michael.
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • MacSharry, Ray.
  • Mitchell, Gay.
  • Mitchell, Jim.
  • Mooney, Mary.
  • Moynihan, Donal.
  • Nealon, Ted.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Noonan, Michael (Limerick East).
  • Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
  • O'Brien, Fergus.
  • Creed, Donal.
  • Cullen, Martin.
  • Daly, Brendan.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • Deasy, Austin.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • de Valera, Síle.
  • Doherty, Seán.
  • Doyle, Avril.
  • Dukes, Alan.
  • Durkan, Bernard.
  • Ellis, John.
  • Enright, Thomas.
  • Fahey, Frank.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Fitzgerald, Liam.
  • Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
  • Fitzpatrick, Tom.
  • Flood, Chris.
  • Foley, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Denis.
  • Gallagher, Pat the Cope.
  • Gibbons, Martin Patrick.
  • Griffin, Brendan.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Hegarty, Paddy.
  • Higgins, Jim.
  • Hilliard, Colm Michael.
  • Jacob, Joe.
  • O'Dea, William Gerard.
  • O'Donoghue, John.
  • O'Keeffe, Batt.
  • O'Keeffe, Jim.
  • O'Keeffe, Ned.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Malley, Desmond J.
  • O'Malley, Pat.
  • O'Rourke, Mary.
  • Quill, Máirín.
  • Reynolds, Albert.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Sheehan, P. J.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Stafford, John.
  • Swift, Brian.
  • Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
  • Treacy, Seáan.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wallace, Dan.
  • Walsh, Joe.
  • Walsh, Seáan.
  • Wilson, John P. Woods, Michael.
  • Wright, G. V. Wyse, Pearse.
  • Yates, Ivan.

Níl

  • De Rossa, Proinsias.
  • Desmond, Barry.
  • Gregory, Tony.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Howlin, Brendan.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kemmy, Jim.
  • McCartan, Pat.
  • Mac Giolla, Tomás.
  • O'Sullivan, Toddy.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Quinn, Ruairí.
  • Sherlock, Joe.
  • Spring, Dick.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Taylor, Mervyn.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies O'Brien and Durkan; Níl, Deputies Howlin and McCartan.
Question declared carried.
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