I propose to take Questions Nos. 78 and 91 together.
In their report entitled Non Fatal Offences Against the Person, published in 1994, the Law Reform Commission made two recommendations which are relevant
(a) they recommended that the maximum penalty under section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875 should be increased to five years (at present it is three months).
(b) they recommended a new offence of harassment which "would capture, for example, the acts of an infatuated psychotic who follows a woman in order to gain her affection". The recommendation was that "a person who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, harasses another by persistently following, watching or besetting him or her in any place, by use of the telephone or otherwise, should be guilty of an offence ... when his or her acts seriously interfered the others peace or privacy".