This amendment made in the Dáil arises out of a point raised by Senator Cooney on Committee Stage of this Bill in the Seanad. It was a point which subsequently turned out to be valid. The Report amendment relates to section 2 of the Bill. Page 3, line 48 of the Bill as it was in the Seanad has now been incorporated by the Dáil. One can see now written in that:
...references in sections 316 and 317 of the Principal Act to a District Justice and the District Court shall, in the case of a conviction by a court other than the District Court, be construed as references to that other court.
Sections 316 and 318 of the Principal Act, the Fisheries (Consolidation) Act, 1959, relate to forfeitures on foot of conviction in fishery offences, the type of fishery offence with which we are dealing in this legislation, but in the Principal Act the two sections relating to forfeiture only relate also to the then existing procedure which was a District Court procedure. Therefore it is essential, in order to fill the lacuna to which Senator Cooney drew attention, that the forfeiture provisions to which section 2 (5) (b) of this Bill relate be transposed into the new indictment procedure in this Bill in addition to the summary procedure. That means in effect that the references in sections 316 and 317 of the Principal Act to a district justice and the powers of the District Court in relation to forfeitures shall, in the case of a conviction by a court other than the District Court, which covers the indictment court procedures envisaged by this Bill, be construed as references to that other court. So we transpose the forfeiture provisions, confined in the main Act to the District Court, over to the procedure now envisaged here whereby the State may proceed by way of indictment in any other court in the country, for example, the Circuit Court or the High Court.
