I listened with interest to Deputy McDowell's contribution on his amendments last week and I am aware from that and a similar contribution he made on the subject on Second Stage that he has strong views on this matter. In cases where assault on a garda is alleged, he believes the dice is excessively loaded against the defendant in the District Court. I accept the Deputy's view is based on his extensive experience in criminal trials and on his perception of the realities involved. Obviously, I do not have that type of personal experience, but I am sure the Deputy will accept that his perception of those realities and the conclusions to which that leads him would not inevitably be shared by all his colleagues in the legal profession. Indeed, the case has been as strongly put to me that in such circumstances the District Courts are more than adequately geared to deal with those matters and that the balance of public advantage does not lie in having automatic recourse by the defendant to Circuit Court hearings. I do not wish to adopt an inflexible approach in this matter, but I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that the conflicting views to which the matter gives rise pose a genuine dilemma.
I have a proposal to make which might meet some of the Deputy's concerns but is unlikely to be entirely acceptable to him. Before doing so let me put the matter in a general context. The general approach which has been taken in recent years in relation to the creation of new statutory offences is that it should be left to the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide in an individual case whether the offence should be dealt with summarily or tried by a jury. In the event that a case is brought before the District Court which the judge considers, by reason of its seriousness, should be tried on indictment, he or she will decline jurisdiction and send it forward for trial in a higher court. This is the approach which has been taken in section 18, dealing with assault with intent to cause bodily harm or commit indictable offence, and section 19, which deals with assault or obstruction of a peace officer. That general approach is a sensible one and, in relation to section 18, I see no compelling grounds for departing from it. As I have said, this has been the norm in legislation for many years.
I appreciate however that different considerations may apply in relation to section 19 in that that section is intended as a direct replacement for section 38 of the Offences against the Person Act, which this Bill proposes to repeal. It is the case at present that the offences under section 38 of the Offences against the Person Act are included in the Schedule to the Criminal Justice Act, 1951, and the effect of this is that these offences can only be tried at present summarily where the accused elects for this. This would not be the case with the offences proposed under section 19 of this Bill unless Deputy McDowell's amendment is accepted.
In view of the complex issues which arise in this area generally I intend in the context of the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, which I have under preparation at present, to examine the question of the approach to the election to opt for summary trials and in particular the scheduled offences under the 1951 Act, including those relating to the assault of a peace officer. In the circumstances I would not be unhappy in the meantime to keep the present arrangements in relation to assaults on peace officers in place. Accordingly, my proposal would be to accept amendment No. 45 without prejudice to the outcome of the general review. For the reasons I have already outlined I would not be prepared to accept amendment No. 44.
