Select Committee on Justice debate -
Tuesday, 8 Nov 2022

Business of Select Committee

Chairman

We have received apologies from Deputies Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Patrick Costello. We have a new member of the committee, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who is taking over the place of Deputy Brendan Howlin. I am not sure if that process has formally gone through yet but I welcome Deputy Ó Ríordáin to the committee and I look forward to his contributions. I take the opportunity to place on record my thanks and appreciation to Deputy Howlin, who was an outstanding member of the committee and who brought interest, enthusiasm and experience. I certainly valued his contributions and I want to put that on record as he moves on to a new role.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Helen McEntee, and her officials. The meeting has been convened to consider Committee Stage of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022.

I also want to acknowledge Mr. Eli Byrne, who is very welcome to the Visitors Gallery. Eli is a student of law and politics in UCD and has an interest in this Bill and in other matters that we consider in these Houses. I hope he finds the experience beneficial to his studies. If any other members of the public or students wish to engage at any stage with us, they are welcome to do so. It is never any harm to remind people that all of our business is done in public session as much as possible and it is open to the public to engage and, if not necessarily to speak until they get their own mandate to come in here, certainly to observe, watch and be part of the proceedings in that sense.

In terms of the housekeeping of the committee, if any divisions are called today, members must be physically present. At least one member is participating remotely, as is often the case now in our hybrid sessions, but if a division is called, the bells will sound and members will have to be physically present in the committee room to vote.

Before we proceed with consideration of the Bill, I note that the committee, the select committee in particular, has quite a heavy legislative focus in the next number of weeks. The Minister referred a number of items to us in the last couple of weeks which we were happy to engage on and to accept. There will be further items and I understand we are considering the licensing Bill in our private session tomorrow in terms of how we manage the process around that. We certainly have a heavy workload, which is right and proper, and we welcome it because that is our job. We will make our best efforts to get through that between now and Christmas. There are some tight deadlines as part of that but we will make our best efforts to do it.

I invite Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin to speak.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Thank you. I know it is my first day at school but I wish to raise one point. I took the opportunity on the Order of Business in the Dáil to raise an issue around the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill. Second Stage is to be taken tomorrow but the deadline for amendments is tomorrow morning, before the Second Stage debate. The Minister said she would look at that. I know it probably falls under the offices of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the Ceann Comhairle. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle, who was in the Chair, said it needed to be changed. I want to put on the record of the committee that we hope that timeline might be altered to facilitate the Second Stage debate taking place first, before amendments are submitted on the Bill.

Chairman

That seems to make sense. Procedurally, it is not in scope for today's session because it is a session on a particular Bill but the point is noted. I think the Ceann Comhairle may have written to the Deputy already or is in the process of doing so. The point is well made and seems to make a lot of sense. That Bill is one on which we completed pre-legislative scrutiny and a number of the recommendations have been incorporated into the Bill as published, which I want to acknowledge.