Lynn Ruane
University of Dublin · Independent · Ireland
“The chairperson of the board of the Courts Service, Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly, said that the rise in drugs cases of a less serious kind had increased the workload of the lower courts.”
“I remember I could barely write when I started studying addiction. I was 16 when I applied for an addiction studies course. They would not let me on it because they said I was too young and it was for adults. I fought and fought. I did not know how to write an essay. I had not engaged in school since I was about 12.”
“The world is watching how Ireland has done the most extensive interrogation of drugs policy ever seen, and is waiting in hope to see what we do next to make sure that we move with the evidence. It is not just opinion.”
“I join Senator McDowell in thanking all the people we should thank for the efficient and smooth running of these Houses. He ran through them all. Even if we have had a few ding-dongs over rulings on amendments and stuff, other than that, things have moved well, as they always do. I thank the staff across both Houses.”
“There are not many things I will claim some level of expertise in, but this is one where I will claim it. I have been obsessed with it since I was about 16. I look forward to coming back in the new year, and not just for 90 minutes. We need a substantial time to discuss this report, whether three hours, four hours or six hours.”
“It will contain all incidents of prohibited AI practices under Article 5 of the AI Act; all serious incidents of high-risk AI systems in the State, reported under Article 73; high-risk AI systems that are employed in critical infrastructure; and any other AI-related incidents or notifications in the State required to be reported under the…”
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“I plead with the Minister to see the logic that, when you break it down, analysis is identification. We are just asking him to name it for what it is so that we can have the conversation and make sure that the protections are in place for people.”
“We are also asking that the Government be transparent about the fears around it and the fact Ireland has this carve-out based on the common travel area and on stuff from the Good Friday Agreement. Ireland is the hub of big tech in Europe, and now we have this carve-out. That is really concerning in terms of what vested interests there are in Ireland being the place where there is a carve-out in how we protect people from the use of biometric analysis and keep that in check. The worst-case scenario is that we have that carve-out in an Ireland that is completely swamped with big tech. Why is that? What if I was to be really paranoid about it? Why do we have that carve-out? In relation to Recital 40, I still do not understand why, due to the common travel area, we have carve-outs in how we define "biometric identification".”
“Yes, but it is biometric identification. It is not biometric analysis. It is just biometric identification. What if you remove the identification piece, whether it is against a database or a live CCTV system where you are comparing one street with the next one to see where someone is moving and tracking that person to identify them? If you remove the end result of identification, then what is analysis and what is its purpose? It does not have any. It does not exist as its own thing. It only exists with the weight of the end result of identification, which makes a biometric identification. All we are really asking is not to shut down the conversation on biometric but to have it in the right place and to not leave us open.”
“It is probably later in the Bill in another section, but the required rank of garda is not stated in the context of going back to Article 26.10, which Ireland seems to have a carve-out from, in relation to seeking approval from a judicial authority for the use of biometric identification. There is also another part of the Bill that says a garda can just ask a fellow garda - another human - to look at this and ask whether they think someone is a particular person. That seems to be standard enough, which is not appropriate. I do not mean to be insulting in any shape or form but I do not know if the Minister, when he is speaking about and explaining biometric analysis, truly, when he breaks it down, does not see how that this is biometric identification, given that the end result is identification.”
“We also seem to have some sort of different understanding of what identification is. Identification is identification. Whether you are comparing one video camera to another CCTV feed or picking out someone getting off a bus and going into a house, it is used for identification. Biometric identification is not understood to be that you just compare something with a name in a database. Identification also follows people around through facial recognition and that is a database, even if it is on a slightly behind clock. Biometric identification is not just a list of names you have on your system and you compare them to see if a person happens to be a particular named person. Biometric identification is the result of identification.”
“In a situation where somebody is missing or in a crime-related context, that analysis still results in biometric identification. I am not certain that I agree with biometric identification and have concerns about it but my concern is that leaving this sentence in this legislation is actually misleading when we look at the rest of the definition in comparison to the EU AI Act.”
“The Minister's definition of “biometric analysis” is called "biometric identification" in the AI Act. For me, this is about making sure we call this what it is, regardless of whether we have different views on how it should be used. I refer to Recital 40, in particular, in relation to the purposes of law enforcement and the special carve-out Ireland seems to have in relation to biometric analysis and its definition in terms of "identification". The Minister has said he will be bringing forward legislation in future. Are we saying, though, that it is not bound by the rules of Article 5 in respect of this legislation around prohibited AI practices? When the Minister tells me about biometric analysis, it sounds exactly like biometric identification. A database and the ability to use a comparison to identify a person exist in both scenarios.”
“I thank the Minister. After all the time in pre-legislative scrutiny and on the AI committee spent exploring what is and is not identification, facial recognition and so on, it is really difficult to understand how this Bill is about analysis when it carves out that one sentence saying it is not identification. If two CCTV clips are being compared, where are those clips being stored? The analysis still results in identification. It is hard to see how analysis, which will exist in this legislation, will not ultimately result in identification. It is not that I am trying to get a carve-out here. Biometric identification is something I have an issue with but I also have an issue with how this Bill is written. I have an issue with how the rest of the definition is written when we compare it with the AI Act. The AI Act calls it identification.”
“The guidelines outlined the specific scenario examining remote processing of biometric data in public spaces for identification purposes and found that such use would constitute a disproportionate interference with the data subject's rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Has the Minister considered these legal implications? The crux of it is that this Bill refers to biometric analysis, but what is clearly outlined is biometric identification. That does not align with the EU's AI Act, which clearly names it as biometric identification.”
“The Department of Social Protection was fined by the Data Protection Commission last year over the use of biometric data linked to the public services card. The use of biometric data in that instance was deemed to not meet the requirements of data protection law as required by GDPR. In this Bill, by creating a novel term in "biometric analysis", which I do not understand, we are using a type of biometric analysis but it is clearly biometric identification and it seems to be trying to move around the acknowledgement of that and diverging from the terminology used in the AI Act. We are concerned that there may be issues regarding this Bill’s compliance in the future with GDPR. The European Data Protection Board has previously issued guidelines on the use of facial recognition technology in the area of law enforcement.”
“The procedures described in the Bill are not comprehensive and our subsequent amendments will speak to concerns about how this technology will be implemented. If we do not opt in to the protections in the AI Act, there is a significant risk that Ireland will become an outlier in Europe where the use of these sorts of surveillance technologies can be trialled. It is a fairly chilling prospect that this country would become a testing ground for the application of biometric systems in criminal investigations and it raises serious questions about the implications of that application on the rights and liberties of citizens and the people who are living here. Another important point to be made here is that we need to be very careful in describing the use of biometric data inaccurately. We have been here before.”
“Interestingly, in Recital 40 Ireland has a carve-out due to the common travel area for the purposes of law enforcement. It is not bound by the rules in Article 5 around the prohibited AI practices in Article 26.10 in relation to seeking approval from a judicial authority for the use of biometric identification in a criminal investigation. Article 26.10 contains many other safeguards regarding the use of biometric technologies. There is an important question that the Minister needs to clarify on this. While we are not bound by these safeguards, are we opting in to those safeguards and if we are not, why not? As I read it, that carve-out exists because of the common travel area and because of the Good Friday Agreement but I do not understand why and how that decision was made.”
“The definition of "biometric analysis" in paragraph (c) seems to be clearly biometric identification. It states that biometric analysis means "the automated recognition" in relation to a particular identified individual. For what purpose would gardaí use technology other than to identify the person under this definition? As much as the Government might want to consider this as biometric analysis, inevitably identification will be happening through the use of these technologies, which puts the use of these technologies in a high-risk category under the AI Act, for which a wide range of safeguards are outlined. What impact will calling these systems by another name have for our compliance with those safeguards? Does this allow us to circumvent the protections outlined in the AI Act?”
“Recital 17 of the EU AI Act is very clear. It states: The notion of ‘remote biometric identification system’... should be defined functionally, as an AI system intended for the identification of natural persons without their active involvement, typically at a distance, through the comparison of a person’s biometric data with the biometric data contained in a reference database, irrespectively of the particular technology, processes or types of biometric data used. This is a very wide-ranging definition. It is difficult to understand how biometric analysis does not include biometric identification as defined by the AI Act. Therefore, we propose to delete the lines that assert that they are not the same thing with particular regard to paragraphs (b) and (c) of the definition.”
“I move amendment No. 3: In page 5, to delete line 33. As we know, this Bill will provide for the use of AI facial recognition systems by An Garda Síochána. I believe the Government has gone about this in a fairly interesting way, using a novel term of "biometric analysis" to define the systems gardaí will be using. However, even though the Government is using that term, the definition provided in the Bill is effectively the same as biometric identification, as described in the EU AI Act. Our amendment deletes line 33 which states that biometric analysis, the novel term which is not used elsewhere within the EU AI Act to describe the technologies that will be employed by the Garda throughout the Bill, does not include biometric identification. Even if the Government might wish for this to be the case, it is hard to see how it will be.”
“If you are a group of people in a community that is not overly policed, maybe you are just hitting a ball with a hurl or doing things as a group. All of a sudden, when people come into a community like mine and they profile others in a perfect way, a group becomes a gang. People standing around together is not a gang but they get stopped and searched all of the time under this power.”
“I have lost my flow. Time is a construct. Very briefly, section 3 is most concerning to me. It is used and abused so much. You cannot take section 3 of the stop-and-search powers alone. Sections 2, 3, 15 and 23 of the drugs Act are obviously all inter-related, so when we mention them with regard to this Bill, it is hard not to take them as a suite of stop-and-search powers in relation to possession. I grew up in a community where we were stopped and searched daily, even as children. You began to run from the police even if you saw them just drive by, even though you had not done anything, as a form of resistance to being stopped and searched consistently and constantly, whether you were walking through a park or standing outside an estate. Apparently, if you are in a group of people in a community like mine, you are a gang.”
“According to a recent report published by the Irish Penal Reform Trust, IPRT, called From Punishment to Prevention, place-based factors such as income inequality, labour market conditions, housing insecurity, social exclusion and weak community infrastructure contribute to higher levels of crime, victimisation and greater justice system contact, with more frequent and more intrusive policing. For many of the IPRT's research participants, being known in their local community meant being stopped repeatedly by gardaí while going about ordinary activities, even when no offence had been committed.”
“We should facilitate a discussion at another stage on the social determinants of crime, and the social, economic and environmental factors, which we know to be the most significant drivers of criminality, but we must also recognise the stigma that comes from being part of an under-served or under-represented community, and how this shapes interaction between the gardaí and the community. Research demonstrates that under-served and under-represented communities recognise frequent, routine contact with gardaí as part of everyday life in their areas, but it is not the case that the presence of An Garda Síochána in these communities has made them any safer, or even provided a feeling of safety for the community. Rather, it serves to undermine relations between the community and police, and erodes trust which effective policing relies on.”
“In particular, the experience of being stopped and searched by gardaí is effectively normalised. This is because people are more likely to be stopped indiscriminately by the gardaí if they are from a community that is overpoliced or where police-community relations are under strain than if they are from a far more affluent community where there is a greater sense of trust between the community and the police. It is not the case that working-class communities or minority communities are inherently more violent or more prone to criminal activity, yet they bear the brunt of the State's policing responses.”
“It has been demonstrated in Ireland that the courts are usually quite deferential to the legal thresholds for police searches set out by the Oireachtas, meaning that the gardaí currently have wide discretion to exercise their stop-and-search powers. Those who observe stop-and-searches rightly assume that the person subject to a stop-and-search has done something wrong, but research demonstrates that in the overwhelming majority of instances of stop-and-search, no criminal wrongdoing is detected. Subsequently, those subject to stop-and-search develop a highly negative view of the interaction, which feeds into the negative perceptions of policing in the community, undermining police and community relations. Contact with the criminal justice system is shaped partially by behaviour, but also by visibility and enforcement.”
“Under the proposed legislation, An Garda Síochána will be able to stop and search individuals where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that a person is in possession of a relevant article. This will become the foundational basis for An Garda Síochána to exercise stop-and-search powers and the circumstances under which a significant number of interactions between the public and the gardaí will take place. At the moment, the vast majority of stop-and-searches by gardaí are undertaken under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. Under this Act, gardaí are empowered to stop and search someone in a public place or in a vehicle if they reasonably suspect that a person is in possession of a prohibited substance as an offence under section 3 of the Act.”
“I move amendment No. 6: In page 9, to delete line 5. Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 9, 12, and 13 relate to stop-and-search powers. Obviously, many of the exceptions referenced are hugely important to relevant articles, but not necessarily in terms of recodifying some very concerning stop-and-search powers within this legislation. This suite of amendments seeks to narrow the definition of what constitutes a relevant article under this Bill, which we believe is far too wide as drafted. Given how invasive, degrading and humiliating an experience it can be to be stopped and searched by gardaí, it is absolutely essential that there are sufficient guardrails and robust safeguards in place to prevent abuse of these powers.”
“We do not even allow for the journalist in question to be able to be in the court to make the case at that level and for the screening to happen then before the search warrant so for me screening is a serious issue. Even though the Minister is referencing all the other parts, I still have a scenario in my head involving a garda of whatever rank with a rake of information. Regardless of whether that is determined relevant or is under journalistic privilege, that Garda has still seen it, still has it and still has all those confidential sources. Whether the Garda can use them is another thing.”
“These were people in very vulnerable positions. No crime had taken place on the site, no call had previously been made, and the gardaí just said they had the search warrant, this was what it said and they were coming in and taking the camera, and they wanted that camera because it might have picked up something somewhere else. They did not pay any heed to the fact that there were people in there receiving care. Without detailing what the process of screening is, the rank of Garda and how it is held, it is really concerning. What we are going to see is a huge amount of secrecy and silence where people become incredibly terrified to share any sort of information with a journalist, especially like when we look at the North, which has inter parte s, as mentioned by Senator Sarah O'Reilly.”
“I am still finding it hard to understand how that data is treated, handled, minded and protected during the screening process because we are going to expose many things to the eye of An Garda Síochána that have nothing to do with the warrant. Definitions bring us back into what is a very wide sweep. Senator McDowell referred to the other stop-and-search powers. Regarding asserting journalistic privilege when a garda already has a search warrant, gardaí arrived at a community project a few weeks back and said they had a search warrant. Those in the community project had no idea why they were there. They asked why and whether they could come back because there were people there receiving confidential services from the project. The gardaí did not care about the anonymity of the people availing of an addiction service in that moment.”
“Do they have so many days to delete all that data? How do we know they delete all that data? Do they hold on to files and files that are unrelated? It is hard for me to understand. We want to ensure that there is legislation to protect that journalistic privilege where I understand there are grey areas and it is not absolute and all those conversations but what is really scary to me is the thought of gardaí just having access to files upon files upon files and going "Okay, they're under journalistic privilege" and then handing them back. They will still have seen them. There are people who might have divulged high levels of abuse or neglect and gardaí actually will have access to this. Whatever about protecting one confidential source, we are actually exposing many other confidential sources in the effort to do a screening access.”
“One file is called "Confidential sources", another file is called "Whistleblowers" and another file is called something else. A Garda or an authorised person under this Bill assessing whether or not that is relevant material now has information on confidential sources for various different cases. They could have been confidential sources or a Garda whistleblower. Imagine if somebody came across that information. Confidential sources are confidential for a reason so even if there is a threshold set around what can be considered relevant, there is a risk with regard to the volume of data that could be seen by gardaí as part of that risk assessment and how that is a held and handled. If it is a USB key they have to plug that into their internal system to assess its relevance, what happens to that data?”
“We have gone back and forth on this a few times. If a Garda makes an application for a search warrant and makes the judge aware that there is a risk to journalistic privilege as part of that search warrant and at that point, the judge decides to go ahead with the search warrant and the gardaí carry out the screening assessment. Having insight and understanding regarding An Garda Síochána's protection of data rights over the years and data leaks, it is very concerning that the assessment of privilege would happen at that level. There is also the question of what Garda rank it happens at. Is it at a certain rank? Will there be a designated office that decides to search that? I am just imagining for a moment that I am a journalist. I have my laptop taken and on that laptop, I have several files.”
“Why would that not go back to the judge for that particular type of search warrant that encompasses journalistic privilege? I do not understand the point of the judge if a person can simply assert that there is journalistic privilege.”
“Is the Minister telling me that the warrant that a guard will receive from that judge will be the exact same warrant, with the exact same criteria and powers as a normal search warrant if the guard did not realise it was a journalist? What is the point in the judge setting out the parameters of the search warrant and he or she needing to know if there is already an automatic assertion of journalistic privilege, which then would have to go through a screening because somebody has said he or she has journalistic privilege? What is the point of the judge? Does he or she set parameters for how that material is handled? Why would it not go back to the judge? Is it the judge who would decide, where the person then asserts that he or she has privileged information?”
“I thank the Acting Chairperson for allowing a back-and-forth discussion; it is helpful. In the instance where a guard goes to a District Court to request a warrant then, within this legislation, as part of that warrant request, if the guard is concerned that it is a journalist or someone else who has privilege, then the guard lets the judge know.”
“Am I correct to think that in the case where a guard is not aware and conducts a search and where a person asserts his or her journalistic privilege at that stage, then the Garda, even without the appropriate warrant associated with journalistic privilege, is required to do the screening on the mere mention that this is journalistic privilege?”
“The guards will not be required to return to the court for a warrant like the one you would get if you applied for a warrant under the awareness of journalistic privilege. Everything can still be taken and it will go through the process even though the judge has not decided whether it is proportionate or necessary.”
“Yes but the journalist has, to a degree. My point is there is other journalistic information within that, which will not be relevant to what the warrant was for, that people will still set eyes upon. It is more just stating the fact of it rather than questioning it right now. I now understand that there is another instance where the guards have a warrant but are not aware that there is potential journalistic privilege and at that stage-----”
“I will remap in steps what has been said to understand the intent. I now understand that there is one scenario where there is awareness that there could be journalistic privilege and that is given as part of the request for a warrant. When a warrant request is given and the judge decides that it is necessary and proportionate for there to be a privilege screening, who conducts the screening?”
“This is people's lives and all the data they have gathered over the years, including every time somebody has contacted them about something. There could be personal information about people and things unrelated to a crime. Who exactly is sitting down and screening whether this is to be considered in the context of journalistic privilege? Who exactly has sight of all this and how do they make that determination? What do they do with all that information that has nothing to do with the intended use of the warrant?”
“This is for a practical understanding. The screening process only begins after search warrants have been issued. If a screening is done on whether something falls within the realm of journalistic privilege, who, at whatever level of An Garda Síochána, actually carries out the screening process? This is unlike a solicitor with disclosure in court and what can or cannot be considered. Several gardaí could raid a home or use a warrant to remove someone's devices and those gardaí will have access to everything that exists, and they will have to go through it line by line and page by page to determine what is and is not relevant. All of a sudden, a group of people has access to highly privileged information that has nothing to do with the scope intended under the warrant. They are then deliberating on that.”
“The fundamental point is that true consideration of journalistic privilege and their associated constitutional rights must be given before the granting of any search warrant. This is simply not the case in the Bill as it is currently drafted.”
“This Bill purports to give the court guidance in how the constitutional right to journalistic privilege can be expressed in practice but the process here is convoluted and unnecessarily complicated. Amendment No. 33, as the Bill is currently drafted, is probably unworkable. However, as recommended by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, the intention here is that search warrants would not be granted for journalists' homes or places of work without a determination of privilege preceding it. The convoluted way in which the Bill is currently structured does not allow for this and, obviously, a determination of privilege cannot be made from material that is not seized in the course of a search.”
“Currently there is no such provision or clear guidance on how journalistic privilege operates and there has been an ongoing tension between the courts and journalists on whether such a privilege is absolute since the Mahon tribunal sued The Irish Times in 2009 to recover confidential documents leaked from the tribunal regarding payments to the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Despite winning the core legal arguments in the case, The Irish Times was punished for destroying documents ahead of legal proceedings and the court's decision was to have substantial legal costs awarded against them. The court's message was that journalists do not get to decide what constitutes journalistic privilege, we do.”
“Without such a provision, the sequencing by which gardaí have access to privileged material could very seriously undermine the confidentiality of that material. The screening process only begins after search warrants have been issued against journalists. Once gardaí are given access to journalistic materials, there is significant risk of improper disclosure of confidential information. A burden is also placed on members of An Garda Síochána. If members were to read privileged information that was in some way associated with a potential crime of any sort, they would have to act on that privileged information. It creates a burden in the other direction too. More generally, this Bill provides a statutory footing in Irish law for the investigation of journalistic material by gardaí, although that footing is constitutionally murky.”
“In this grouping, we have amendments Nos. 32 and 33. Section 17 outlines the procedure for applying for a search warrant by a member of An Garda Síochána. Section 17(5) outlines that, if the member suspects that privileged material will be present at the place of the search, he or she must include this information in the application for the search warrant. Section 18 provides for a privilege screening in instances where a judge considers it necessary and proportionate. However, it is not mandated in every instance. Amendment No. 32 seeks to ensure that, where a member of An Garda Síochána includes in an application that privileged journalistic material might be present at a place that is to be searched, that member will not have access to the material prior to a privilege screening.”
“The 1987 An Garda Síochána stations regulations outline clear provisions for the treatment of persons who are held in Garda stations. However, these regulations apply to these settings and no regulations are in place for those outside of Garda stations. Can the Minister give us clarity as to where he envisages these other places to be? Will they be the private detention facilities that will be established under the International Protection Act? How does he anticipate the wideness of the definition that has been applied? I note that we have concerns that the protections granted to persons who are detained in Garda stations will not carry over to other places that might be used for detention. Regardless of what the Minister might say in relation to this, the Bill as drafted does not provide this clarity as it is currently written on paper.”
“I move amendment No. 2: In page 6, lines 25 and 26, to delete “other place at which a person may be held while in the custody of An Garda Síochána” and substitute “vehicle”. This amendment simply proposes to delete the words "other place at which a person may be held while in the custody of An Garda Síochána" and to insert "vehicle". It seeks to narrow the definition of a "Garda custody facility" in the Bill to a Garda station or a Garda vehicle. We believe that the definition in the Bill as it stands is far too wide. There is no clarity in the current definition of "other place". It could feasibly include any location, including locations that are unmonitored or unregulated. Current statutory regulations are specified in the Criminal Justice Act 1984 for the treatment of persons in custody in Garda stations.”
“However, you could be saying, "We need unnecessary adjournments", but your solicitor could be saying, "We need some adjournments because we have just got this person to register with their local youth centre and they are going to start a course in a community college." However, now you have only a flat fee and all of a sudden you cannot put in all those structures to make sure that person exits the criminal justice system and has what they need. Finally, can the Minister of State say if any engagement took place with the District Court judges, who administer the system day in and day out, before the Department came up with these proposals?”
“I know from reading the submission made by the Law Society that it also asserts this is a flawed proposal. When we think of efficiency, I am sure there are plenty of unnecessary adjournments in some cases, but in many there are not. As a community worker, I always try to portray to people whom we go to for funding that you cannot measure human interaction in efficiency or number of outcomes, number of adjournments or number of cases. It is a matter of how you work with individuals on a day-to-day basis, especially when we look at the courts system. In Ireland we say we have a rehabilitative system, whereby we might look at young people and vulnerable adults and often try to create other pathways for them out of the criminal justice system.”
“We cannot really say we have a system built on fair access to justice and legal aid if we are saying there could be a case with more than 20 adjournments in which we expect a solicitor to work for €455 and treat that person with the detail and care he or she needs across those adjournments.”
“These things obviously tick on and on. Can the Minister of State imagine a solicitor being faced with a case like this, which has complexities, whether poverty or trauma or whatever it may be, and in this scenario telling him or her that €455 is the fee? That is not even the out-of-court aspect and it has nothing to do with prison visits that may be needed to build the case and adequately support the individual. This is of real concern to some of the most vulnerable people who may end up before the courts. Whatever about the access to justice they may receive, we may also see, as we have in other areas of law, people leaving the legal aid system and saying it is not feasible for them to be able to work within it. What we are doing is creating a shrinking pool of access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in the country.”
“To give some reality to that, in one particular case among the cases I have looked at, there were eight appearances before the court. That may have included a probation report. The person may appear again when the probation report is not ready and the case is then adjourned again and again. In some cases it might be said that solicitors are delaying cases but many of these cases are found to be State-led in terms of delays. Another case I looked at was from 24 April 2025. The number of adjournments between that date and 6 November 2025 was 21. Can the Minister of State imagine that a solicitor receiving €455 for a total of 20-odd cases is going to be able to provide adequate support to that individual who has severe mental health and psychiatric issues? At one point in the case he was unable to plead due to his unwellness.”