Barry Ward
Dún Laoghaire · Fine Gael · Ireland
“I acknowledge all of the factors the Minister of State set out. I welcome them all and it is really important that we spread that message. The second part of the Minister of State's response is really important and that is the EU jobs part. I would not necessarily limit it just to the European Union.”
“Let us not abdicate responsibility for politically unpopular decisions, which are still the right decisions, made at European level with the involvement of Irish people.”
“There is little doubt about the positivity we associate with membership of the European Union. Some 82% of Irish people favour membership of the European Union, the highest rate of approval of any European state.”
“It is really important, not from the point of view of influence but from the point of view of presence, that there are Irish people around the table when decisions are being made so that the Irish perspective is understood and heard.”
“To look at it from a purely economic standpoint, the value of being part of the Single Market is enormous. In 1973, we imported €340 million more in goods than we exported. In recent times, we have had an export surplus. We have exported more than €53 billion more than we have imported.”
“As we hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU and are at the heart of Europe, leading the agenda and setting the tone in respect of our priorities during the Presidency, what is the Government doing to communicate to Irish people just how lucky we are to be part of the European Union?”
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“I absolutely accept the Minister's commitment to these issues. With animal welfare, everyone in this House has something to do with animals, whether they are domestic pets or agricultural animals. I think the prosecutions in the Department focused particularly on agricultural stock, and obviously there is a food safety issue there as much as anything else, but it needs to be expanded to include domestic animals. I remember as a child getting a rescue dog. He was a cross between an Old English sheepdog and a black Labrador. We still talk about that dog and there are pictures of him in the house. These animals are so important and they are part of all of our lives. Animal welfare, as the Minister has acknowledged, is more than just the prosecution of offences that are plain.”
“They are the ones that supplement the work of the Minister's Department. They carry out hugely important work to ensure there are people on the ground who are familiar with animal welfare issues and have the capacity in the context of a prosecution to help rescue those animals and present the Department with evidence so it can proceed in those prosecutions. I also acknowledge the Minister's commitment to reforming that law so that those prosecutions can be more effective.”
“I note the Minister's comments about rural Deputies raising issues here but I agree with him that agricultural issues and animal welfare issues are not just for rural Deputies. There are farms in the Dún Laoghaire constituency. I am a member of the Irish Farmers Association, IFA. They are mostly drystock farms in the south west of the constituency but agriculture affects everybody and it is important. Animal welfare is something that is very close to my heart. As a barrister I prosecuted animal welfare offences for the Minister's Department in the past. I worked with organisations like the ISPCA and the DSPCA which did incredible work supporting the Minister's Department in bringing those prosecutions and bringing evidence in relation to them. Those are the organisations I am talking about.”
“We can all recognise the importance of animal welfare groups and the work that they do. I particularly welcome the increase in funding to them, to €6.5 million, in accordance with the commitment in the programme for Government. The 94 groups which will benefit from that do incredibly important work. Can we, however, put a bit of certainty in place for organisations like that? Multi-annual funding allows them to plan more into the future and increase the quality of the work they do, for example to provide support for the Minister's Department in prosecutions under the animal welfare Acts. Can we provide that multi-annual funding and that certainty for them?”
“Rather than trying to implement things that will not make a difference but will make life harder for international protection applicants, we should be looking at this Bill as an opportunity to streamline a system that delivers for us as a country and, God forgive me, as an economy, but also for the people who are coming here seeking and deserving our protection.”
“In the same way we would provide proper legal representation for people before a court in family matters under legal aid schemes - or for people accused of a crime, for that matter - we should be looking after people who come here to bring international protection applications with proper legal representation. I do not know what legal counsellors are. I do not know if they are lawyers and I do not know if they will be up to the pace on that. I have heard quite a lot of rhetoric here and do not agree with it all. I suspect I am more sympathetic to some of it than many of my Government colleagues but the reality is that we have obligations and we need to make good on those obligations. We do good things but we also do things that are substandard.”
“If they did not do a report within a certain period they had to retrain despite their being highly qualified individuals. They were taken advantage of by the IPO and it is a shame on the office that it did that. Is this a further step down this road? Is this again what we are doing? We are trying to circumvent the fact we have a coterie of highly qualified, highly capable professional people who can provide a service. Is it the case the State simply does not want to pay for it or wants to avoid paying for it? It should not try to avoid this.”
“I also have a concern about the legal counsellors provision and the provision of legal counsel. "Legal counsellors" is not a term I understand. I understand what it means in plain English, but I do not understand whether it means qualified lawyers in Ireland. One of the criticisms I have of the International Protection Office and the way it administered the legal scheme for people coming here was it did not properly engage barristers or solicitors. The office aimed at junior members of the profession, especially barristers as they are self-employed and they had the capacity to do this work, and it took advantage of them in no uncertain terms. The office required them to train for free and often for more than a day at a time.”
“When people leave or flee their home country seeking international protection they are not putting together an Excel spreadsheet of the terms, benefits and opportunities in the countries they might end up in. They go to wherever they can to avoid the persecution they were suffering. I doubt there are people coming here thinking the family reunification benefits in Ireland are fantastic and for that reason they will go there. It does not work that way. As such, I do not really see the need for us to tell those people they are going to have to wait three years. Where before they had to apply within 12 months, now they have to wait over three years. I do not appreciate that, do not think it is necessary and do not think it should be in the Bill. I ask the Minister to consider that on Committee Stage.”
“The notion you would come here under a work permit to work in this country as part of an immigration scheme and you have to wait five years to apply, whereas if you come here under international protection you have to wait three, is not right. It is not fair to disadvantage people who have come here under an immigration scheme as opposed to those who have an international protection status, so let us even that out. If it is to be five years I do not really have a problem with that. I have a problem with the family reunification aspect. It is miserly and unfair. I do not think it is going to achieve very much in terms of changing the environment or in any way dissuading people from coming here.”
“They may have met a partner here and started a family and now they are being told they have to leave, when this country might be all their children know. That is unreasonable. I welcome the elements of the Bill that seek to change that and speed up the process. I also welcome the EU migration pact because it equips us with the tools we need to speed up that process. Although it might be controversial in some respects, it is really important, if it is going to deliver for people, that we use it. In that regard, I do not have a problem with the changes proposed to the time period within which people are allowed to apply for citizenship or naturalisation.”
“Let us solve that problem. The Bill does nothing, for example, to address the right of international protection applicants to work here. I hope this is something the Minister will consider changing by way of amendments at a later Stage. It would be easy to make changes to employment legislation under the guise of this Bill to allow people who are here for whatever length of time, and before a determination has been made on their application, to work. Perhaps the most important action we can take for international protection applicants here is to invest in the International Protection Office to ensure their applications are processed in a timely way. The most unfair thing is when people come here and wait years for a determination and, even worse, then get a determination that goes against them. They have built a life here.”
“We should remember these are people coming from places where they cannot live their lives - war-torn places and places where they are discriminated against because of who they are, whether on the basis of their sexual orientation, ethnicity or whatever it might be. They come here looking to make a new life and to contribute in whatever way they can. Let us welcome them in to do that. In fact, the issue in this regard is that we do not let them work early enough. They should not have to wait six months before they can work. Let us allow them to contribute now because that is what they want to do. None of them wants to be sitting in an IPAS centre thumb twiddling and trying to find something to occupy the time every day. What a waste of human capital that is at a time when we need them to contribute, which is what they want to do.”
“Regarding healthcare, I have raised this issue a number of times with the Minister's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, and I know there is an international protection medical service serving that centre. However, there is a real problem with access to GPs in south Dublin. The residents get medical cards, which is all well and good, but GP practices in Dún Laoghaire will not take medical card patients because they simply do not have the capacity. That is a problem but the dedicated health service solves it to a certain extent. On the question of what the residents would do all day, it simply is not an issue.”
“Again, at that centre, Merrion House, none of the problems foreseen by some people locally have materialised. Just over 100 people are living there, which is a small number really. The problems I foresaw when that development came to my attention were problems with education, healthcare and, as raised by others, in terms of what the people living there would do all day. I will come back to that third point momentarily. Schools in the area are delighted to see them. In fact, there has been an unqualified welcome for them from the principals of primary and secondary schools in the area. They add diversity to their classes, bulk up their numbers and make a contribution. The schools are delighted to have them.”
“It is solely occupied by single men, who have not received the respect or treatment from IPAS that they deserve and who are living in a substandard building. Notwithstanding that, they continue to contribute to the community in Dún Laoghaire. The problems many local people foresaw with their arrival simply have not materialised. In Blackrock, where there are two IPAS centres, albeit right next to each other, the families living there have contributed so much to the community. They are part of the Tidy Towns organisations and have joined local clubs. They are contributing in so many ways, including working in local businesses. A larger centre has opened on Merrion Road in the Minister's constituency, although I would submit it is more directly connected to mine. In terms of residential areas, Booterstown is probably closer to me.”
“I understand why they did that and I have been back and forth on the question of whether we should do something similar from the point of view of acknowledging that we, too, have certain people, albeit a minority and without a mandate, expressing those views within our polity, on social media and in other media. However, I also think there is a danger that if we just do their job for them, then there is no point in keeping them out. Therefore, I come back to the point that we must constantly work to balance up these issues. It remains a topic I grapple with because in my constituency of Dún Laoghaire, the experience we have had with migration has been universally positive. Of the IPAS centres within the constituency, the one on Eblana Avenue in Dún Laoghaire town is substandard.”
“We often use the term "social cohesion" perhaps a little loosely but they recognised the problem that there was a growing far-right movement within Denmark. There are still problems, of course, which is something every country is dealing with. Fortunately, Ireland does not have any real mandate for far-right people or people expressing that ideology. The Danish Social Democrats were concerned about that ideology getting a grip and, so, what they did was try to get out ahead of it. That is how they would explain it. They sought to neutralise the arguments being made by far-right politicians to ensure they could not use migration as a tool to get themselves into elected office and into positions of power and influence where they could continue to propagate what is, in essence, a racist ideology.”
“I also recognise that we cannot accept everybody from elsewhere into this country. There is a balancing act that must be done all the time. In this regard, one of the issues I have found myself discussing, particularly with Danish colleagues in the context of their Presidency of the European Council, is what the Danish Government has done in regard to migration specifically. Interestingly, Denmark has a social democratic Government and it is probably at variance with many of the social democrats in this Chamber on this issue. When I first heard what the Danish Social Democrats Government was doing, I had my reservations about it. However, I have had a lot of conversations with Social Democrats members of the Folketing who have explained why they have pursued what I would say is a fairly hard-line policy on migration.”
“Immigration has been an unqualified success for Ireland. In fact, the problem with immigration is the slowness in granting work permits and in responding to the needs of particular sectors for skilled workers in a specific area. That is another subject and another day's work altogether. With migration, on the other hand, we are dealing with a couple of issues. First, we have our international obligations. I have always supported what we do as part of the international community to recognise that just as our citizens in the past went to other countries seeking shelter, support and asylum during tough times here, we must play our part in welcoming people from other countries to Ireland, giving them shelter and succour and allowing them to live the lives we would like everybody in the world to be able to live.”
“When I talk about immigration, I am referring to people who come here under a work permit system to take up positions, not to avail in any way of supports from the State but 100% to contribute to it. As has been noted in this House on a number of occasions, we need those people. They are keeping our hospitals and restaurants open, staffing our hotels and contributing at every level in their communities. As a country that is in some ways a victim of its own success in that we have full employment, we need people from other countries to come here to do jobs, work with us and contribute to our economy. Of course, they are also paying taxes, spending their income here and contributing at all kinds of economic levels, as well as solving employment problems for employers and companies all over the country.”
“This is a subject on which I have been back and forth. I would say I am generally in favour of immigration. It has done this country almost nothing but good. When I think of the Ireland in which I grew up in the 1990s, it was homogenous and, by extension, quite restricted. There were no foreigners to speak of in Ireland, certainly in the early 1990s, and the homogeneity of our society meant we did not have the experience of multiculturalism and all the positive things that come with it. I say that in relation to immigration because migration had not even come onto the horizon at that stage. Some people talk about migration and immigration as if they are the same thing but it is really important to distinguish between the two.”
“I have been in touch with lots of people in my constituency who have sheltered people and have agreed to house them when they are here. If there can be an alleviation to the cost to the taxpayer through people like that, is the Department open to this as something that could allow us to bring more people in under the programme?”
“I appreciate that and I understand where the Minister of State is coming from. I do not know if it is possible to say what the cost per member of that programme is, or if it has been broken down. In the context of their families, is there room to identify a person who has come here? In the case of Afghanistan, for example, it tends to be women; often very highly qualified women such as women journalists, women judges and women lawyers who come here and their families remain targets in Afghanistan. I appreciate what the Minister of State said about resources. Of course we have to keep an eye on that but in the circumstances of these people, can we identify what the per-person cost is and whether that cost is lesser for the members of their family who might want to come here?”
“They are often very highly skilled, very highly educated people. They can contribute in our community as well. Is there a reason that 50 has been picked? I am assuming it is 50 in 2026 and 50 in 2027. Is there a reason that number has been picked and can it be expanded?”
“I hear what the Minister of State is saying. I am not entirely clear on why there is a limit of 50 because the people we are talking about here particularly need our support. For example, two Afghan women who are living in Ireland have spoken to me about this. They still have family stuck in Afghanistan. Their families are at risk because they have left and their families are necessarily a target then for the Taliban. We all know what the Taliban is capable of. We all know the abuse that women, in particular, suffer at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I know there is always pressure on resources in this regard but these are people who particularly deserve our support and our shelter and the opportunity to come here and live a life that they cannot live in their home country.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. My question refers to the humanitarian admissions programme. The Minister will be aware that it is a very important programme. I wonder if he can make a statement on it and tell us whether new applications will be accepted in 2026 or how that scheme is going to progress into the future.”
“Similarly, I welcome the provisions set down in section 9 about lost or abandoned children. We often talk about cherishing all children of the nation. It is a phrase that goes right back to the beginning of our statehood and the formation of the State. It is not just a slogan or phrase; it is something by which we must live and there are any number of examples we are all aware of where we have not managed to cherish all children of this nation equally. We need to do everything we can to ensure they can be cherished. This Bill is a step in that direction. It is not a panacea and there is still a lot of work to do. The Minister is aware of that. However, if this Bill can bring us further down that road and address some of the lacunae identified by people who work in this sector and who are served by the sector, that is a good thing.”
“I welcome the Minister having the power to intervene directly by making regulations in a more reactive or flexible way. One of the difficulties with primary legislation is that to change it we all have to come here and to the Seanad and vote to do so. I welcome that section 8 provides for the right of the Minister to make regulations about accommodation for homeless children. That is one way the State is being empowered to react with a swiftness and flexibility that are not available if the power is set out in primary legislation only. The idea that it is in a regulation and that Ministers can change it as demands arise and situations change is important and welcome from the point of view of how the Bill, and the Act as it will become, will operate.”
“Significant sums of money can be dispensed on services that do not need to be spent. Sometimes, because it is a behemoth, much like the HSE, it begins to act as such and it would be much better if it were leaner and willing to respond to the needs of the people it purports to serve. We see in this Bill the power it creates for regulations to be made by the Minister relating to homeless children. That is exactly the kind of area where we should be legislating to empower the Government to act in exigent circumstances. Members of this House who have dealt with constituents who come to their offices with issues that are appalling and frightening and that they would never want anyone they know or represent to deal with know it is Tulsa we turn to answer those questions and respond to those problems.”
“If I may, I will say a few words about Tusla. It does enormously important work. Very often it does great work. It provides lifelines for families and children who need it. It provides counselling, social protection and social care for those people. It intervenes when no other arm of the State is willing to do so. It provides succour, guidance, advice and support to those families and children. That is massively important and I acknowledge the work it does. Many of the individuals who work in Tusla - the social workers, the people who are fighting the ground war with problems that families and children are facing - deserve our acknowledgement and praise. Tusla, as an institution or entity, however, has significant problems. I am not criticising it wholesale, but there are value-for-money issues in Tusla.”
“The worst area for this is road traffic legislation. People must sit down with several Acts to ascertain what the law is. That is more of a drafting point than anything else. I have listened to the debate today and there is definitely work to be done. The Bill identifies areas where there are problems that need to be resolved. I note sections 7 and 8 of the 1991 Act about the committees are being repealed. I understand why that is happening and I welcome that a coiste is being set up to replace those institutions and ensure we can deliver the childcare provisions required. The reference to the Child and Family Agency brings me back to the fact that "Tusla", as it is commonly called, is just a brand name being pushed by a marketing person in the Child and Family Agency. Rather than creating clarity, it is creating confusion.”
“Therefore, if we can do it in this one section, where it is proposed to replace section 5 of the 1991 Act with the new section to be substituted, that is, section 7 of the Bill, we can do it elsewhere. I wanted to acknowledge that the draftsman and the Department have done that, even though it has not been done in other places in the Bill. I refer to the table of contents, where almost every section in Part 2 is simply an amendment. For example, "Amendment of section 3 of the Principal Act" is section 4 of the Bill. I am a lawyer. Even as a lawyer reading that I have no idea what it means until I go to see what section 3 of the principal Act says. It is an important principle, in the context of drafting and making drafting accessible to people, that they are not required to sit down with three, four, five or more Acts.”
“However, having a Bill that is a mass of statements such as "section 5 of the principal Act is amended in the following ways" makes it difficult for people to read. One of the things I always say about amendment Acts is that it would be much better to pass a consolidated Bill, restating the bits of the principal Act we want to keep and restating the sections proposed to be amended by the amending legislation. That said, it is worthy of acknowledgement that section 7 does that by the substitution of section 5 of the 1991 Act. It can be seen in the restatement of the new section 5, which will be the law after this Bill passes, that it is much easier to read.”
“It is hugely important. This is an area of legislation that has not been updated for some time and that requires updating. The care of children or specific childcare measures are hugely important. I am sorry to say that we are all aware of many instances where the State has failed to deliver in that space. As such, any effort the Government makes to update the legislation in this area to ensure that there is proper care provision in place for children who need it is absolutely welcome. Something I always say when we deal with legislation of this sort is that there are a mass of amendments to the principal Act. In this case, the principal Act is the 1991 Act. I understand that the latter is the basis of childcare in Ireland today.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Agus mé ag féachaint ar Theideal an Bhille agus na rudaí atá sé chun a dhéanamh, déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire as teideal Gaeilge an choiste nua a úsáid, is é sin, an coiste forfheidhmithe agus idirghníomhaireachta um chúram leanaí. Is mór an rud é go bhfuilimid ag úsáid na bhfocal agus na dtéarmaí Gaeilge sin. Ag an am céanna, ní dóigh liom go bhfuil gach éinne chun an teideal sin a úsáid gach lá. Sílim go mbeidh deacracht ag roinnt daoine an teideal sin a úsáid. B’fhéidir go ndéanfar giorrúchán ar an ainm sin ach is breá é a fheiceáil i dTeideal Fada an Bhille. It is wonderful to see the use of the Irish title for the committee that is proposed, but I see it being shortened by people in daily use. I suspect that it will be referred to either as "the coiste" or by an acronym. I welcome the Bill.”
“What can we do about it when nobody has any plan to solve it? There is a raft of possible measures, however. The simplest and perhaps the quickest one is to build a second attenuation tank at the West Pier. That would be another 70,000 cu. m that could accommodate the overflow from the overflow, but we have to deal with the underlying problem as well, solve it in quick order and not wait for it to get worse.”
“It then comes up through toilets and drains all the way through the areas of south Dublin that are closest to the sea at the bottom of the hills. That is not acceptable. What is done instead is it is dumped into the sea. All of this water that has accumulated at the West Pier pumping station gets put directly into Dublin Bay contributing to E. coli, poor water quality and places where it is unsafe to swim, or even for animals to run around. It is totally unacceptable. Nobody can tell me in this House how many times that happens per year. We know it will happen several times this week, but nobody could tell me in 2024 or 2025 how many times it happens. The people who live in the area will not know about it until a few days afterwards when the council has tested the water and puts up a no bathing notice. That is not on either.”
“What happens on a day like today when it has been lashing rain all day and we have had a lot of water accumulating on the roads and going into those gullies and into the sewerage system? An excess of water arrives at the West Pier pumping station. In fairness, before Irish Water was there, what is called an attenuation tank was built. It is an overflow tank of 70,000 cu. m that is there to take that water and hold it until after the rain stops and there is capacity within the pipe once again to pump it to Poolbeg. However, when there is a lot of heavy rain, as there is today, that tank gets full. If you simply hold that water, the tank gets full, the pumping station is beyond capacity and the water backs up.”
“One of the great and easily solved problems is that when it rains heavily, all the run-off from the roads that flows into the gullies at the sides of roads goes into the sewerage system, into the same pipes where toilets are emptied and domestic sewage is emptied. In the case of my own area, it goes down to the West Pier pumping station at Dún Laoghaire and is pumped in an under-seabed pipe to Poolbeg for treatment, before the treatment water is discharged into the sea. That is all very well but because the system is over capacity, the volume of water that is now arriving at the West Pier pumping station is vastly in excess of the capacity of the pipe to pump it into Poolbeg, and vastly in excess of the capacity of Poolbeg to treat the water.”
“If I were from Kerry and, between the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, and Deputy Cahill, I had not had my village or townland mentioned, I wonder how I would feel. I understand and agree with many of the issues they have raised. The issue I want to raise is along the same lines, as it relates primarily to wastewater treatment. In Dublin we have a Victorian wastewater system. It is not fit for purpose any more. The extent of development of building in Dublin, while welcome from the point of view of providing housing that is much needed, means there is absolutely unbearable pressure on that system now.”
“I recognise there is a limited extent to which we can intervene in Sudan or Iran or in any of the other long list of unfair or illegal conflicts around the world but we must do what we can.”
“How are we helping them? Equally, what are we doing in relation to the United Arab Emirates and what it is doing in assisting this conflict and fostering this conflict to continue? Are we taking steps? Are we raising it with them at diplomatic level in terms of asking them to exit it? Are we talking about this issue generally because it is a huge conflict? As we look at conflicts around the world, it is so often the case that Sub-Saharan Africa does not garner the attention that other conflicts around the world do in the media. They do not get the attention they need from the western world and from the countries which support the rule of law and say we need to be doing more to ensure the human rights of these individuals and to ensure they have a chance to live their lives in a way that all of us in this country get to. They should too.”
“An estimated 150,000 people have died in the context of that internal conflict which is more than the estimated number of people who have died in Gaza. I know Ireland has given aid. I have heard what the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, has said in terms of that aid to date and the continuation of that aid this year. I welcome that decision. We have a Sudanese Embassy in Dublin. I do not know how many Members of this House have interacted with the ambassador. I do not know if the Minister has had that opportunity. How are we ensuring that the aid we are putting on the ground in Sudan is actually helping the people on the ground, the people who are suffering, the ordinary civilians and particularly those outside Khartoum in the areas in the west of the country who are really at risk in the context of this civil war?”
“It may have been precipitated by economic difficulties and a collapse in the value of the rial and all the other inflationary pressures that have been on those people but we know before the current regime in Iran there was actually a functional, free society. It has been gone since the 1970s. I am not saying the Shah was a great fellow either but there has been an oppressive regime there all that time. Hopefully, we see that coming to a head now but the ordinary people of Iran who are raising their voices, having their voices heard and who are being suppressed by their own government need to be recognised and assisted by Ireland in whatever way it can. The other instance I want to raise is Sudan. The war in Sudan has been going on now since April 2023.”
“Essentially, that went uncriticised by European governments. I hope we now take a strong line in relation to Greenland and that Europe does stand on its own two feet instead of always backing down and appeasing because it does nothing to achieve what we would all like to see achieved. I will mention two specific instances that relate to international affairs. Iran is one. It has gotten a lot of play in the media recently because of the appalling events that have occurred there, the thousands of people who have been killed and the many thousands more who have been arrested by their Government for simply disagreeing with the Government.”
“However, there has been a very weak response from Europe collectively, although I recognise what our Government has done, how strong a voice our Government has been and how we built a coalition to support that position. The reality is that as a collective Europe has not really delivered in relation to that. One could make similar comments around Venezuela. There has been an incredibly weak response from European leaders in respect of what Donald Trump did in Venezuela. It was an illegal invasion of another country. Yes, Maduro was a tyrant and an autocrat and somebody who did not deserve to be in office but that is true of many people around the world and yet they are not taken out by another country, particularly by a so-called western member of the global community the way America is.”
“This is a very wide topic for debate. It covers a multitude. I have listened to what other speakers have said. First, I will address Ireland's role in the European Union. I have always seen the European Union as a body which was all about the rule of law, respecting the rule of law and ensuring that the rule of law is the means by which we do business. That is hugely important. I have said publicly before that I am actually very disappointed with the manner in which the European Union leadership has approached the rule of law internationally. I can start with Gaza and the attitude of some in the Commission. What happened with Hamas over three years ago was appalling but it does not justify what has happened.”
“It is a lot to expect all those things to come together and be wrong in one instance. We can get around that. The protocols and procedures are important but the technology is important for improving law enforcement and the work of An Garda Síochána.”
“I have faith that system can deal with systems like this, whether with juries or without. As important as it is to have a system that works, it is also important that we do not unnecessarily waste Garda time performing a function that could be done by this technology. The biometric data that can be processed by this algorithm, flawed or otherwise, will always be checked by a human being and second-guessed by a person whose reputation is on the line. I am not saying gardaí do not make mistakes, because of course they do. I am not saying the DPP's office does not make mistakes because of course it does. However, in order for this miscarriage to occur the FRT has to be wrong, the garda has to be wrong, the DPP has to be wrong and then the court, the jury and the citizens have to be wrong.”