There was opposition to the section as it stood on the last day and Members were concerned that it would give gardaí excess powers. I have given considerable thought to the matter since the last meeting and I accept that some change is necessary.
I agree that giving the police power to arrest without warrant is a serious decision, which should only apply when it is essential for the public good. There are precedents for it, of course, but I am anxious that such a procedure should be used only as necessary in the public interest.
The nature of the drug trafficking situation is one, however, where one can easily visualise situations in which it is necessary to arrest without warrant, normally because of the ease with which evidence can be disposed of or moved. It seems to me that what we must do is retain the power of arrest without warrant as a last resort, while defining as clearly as possible the situations in which it can be used.
I have circulated a proposal to the committee. You will see that it restricts the power of arrest without warrant to clearly defined circumstances. These are circumstances where the Garda have reasonable cause for believing that the person concerned will evade or divert the course of justice, or that he has given a fake name and address or that the person has no fixed abode in the State.
The new proposal represents a substantial modification of the original section. It confines the power of arrest without warrant to clearly defined and limited circumstances and is in line with legislation in most other countries. I hope it meets with the support of the committee.
Deputy Haughey argued at our last meeting that this power of arrest without warrant should be confined to certain serious offences, that is, to certain sections of the Bill. I have thought about this at length. I think the difficulty in adopting this approach is that serious offences can be committed under every offence section in the Bill, almost without exception. Under section 3, for example, possession of cannabis for one's own use might be a relatively minor offence, whereas possession of LSD would be a quite serious one. The same distinctions would exist for almost every offence section.
If we tried to draft this section in such a way that it attempted to distinguish between various kinds of offences within each offence section, we would make the Bill impossibly complex and unworkable by the Garda. I believe that my new proposal, which represents a compromise, is a more workable solution. It also offers protection to the individual in a very real way.
To meet some of the examples given on the last occasion, I propose that section 25 be revised on the following lines:
A member of the Garda Sochána may arrest without warrant a person who commits, or attempts to commit, or whom the member has reasonable cause to suspect has committed or attempted to commit, an offence under this Act, if
(a) he has reasonable cause to suspect that the person will evade or divert the course of justice unless arrested, or
(b) having enquired of the person he has reasonable doubts as to the person's identity or place of abode, or
(c) having enquired of the person he knows that the person has not, or he has reasonable doubt as to whether the person has, a fixed abode in the State.
These qualifications are proposed to meet the objections which were made by the members of the committee to the section which, on reflection, I think you will agree was too sweeping and did not provide for any exclusions. The example we were given was of a young boy on drugs who was arrested without warrant. In this case, if a member of the Garda is satisfied that the boy has given his proper name and address and that he will not leave the country or try to disappear within the country, it would not be necessary to make an arrest. As far as the pusher is concerned, even if he were known to the Garda, and there is no suggestion of his trying to evade arrest——
