Michael McDowell
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“Then I think of this particular Chamber where people are polite and kind to each other and listen to each other respectfully. There is no baying or shouting down or whatever. It is a great tribute to the Seanad staff that that spirit continues to exist in this House.”
“I note that the whole scheme of the planning Act is that exempt development proposals are considered by the Houses. It is questionable whether this House has really considered the exempt development regulations. Without debate, we sent them off to a committee.”
“I am one of the people who disagrees with the substance of that report. We have to have a real solid debate on it here in this House, not merely a cursory one. It is an issue of fundamental importance. It cannot be avoided, one way or the other. Whatever your views are on it, it needs to be thrashed out.”
“Although coming up to the end of this term we are rushing things through, and the guillotine is well-oiled and slicing this way and that, we have a lot of work to do in the autumn.”
“The people who did that were brought before the International Court of Justice and condemned and imprisoned. If Ireland does not clearly state that there are to be consequences for people who do things like what Mladić, Milošević and Karadžić were brought to account for, if we are incapable as a State of publicly saying that what Secretar…”
“If we cannot, as a State, say publicly to Rubio, "Hands off the International Criminal Court", when they were quite happy when the people who did the 7,000 murders in Srebrenica got their just desserts, but when there is any suggestion that what has happened in Gaza, with 70,000 innocent people killed by aerial bombardment and land bombar…”
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“If the Minister is very happy with his interpretation of the law I will not press the matter any further but I do think that some day some smart solicitor or barrister will raise this point and say there was no power of search of the pram; the person was standing away from the pram at the time and the power of search was confined to a personal search or a search under this Part of a vehicle and the knapsack, luggage or whatever in question does not come in within the definition. However, if the Department and the Minister are of the view, and if the Minister of State shares that view, then I will not put the matter any further.”
“I want to join the Cathaoirleach in welcoming the Minister of State, congratulating her on her very well-merited appointment and wishing her every success in that appointment. The Minister indicated, in the Minister of State’s absence, that in his view that if somebody has a pram or trolley, for example, or has had it in their possession that that is covered by the power of search of the person. I was saying to him that it was a very absolute view. It does not necessarily follow that a search of the person involves a search of a trolley or pram or knapsack that someone suspects of their having had in their possession but which they no longer have in their possession.”
“That is a somewhat unnecessarily absolutist approach to this. If a member of An Garda Síochána sees a number of people and comes to the conclusion that one of them may have dumped a rucksack, for example-----”
“Likewise, I have to say, unfortunately, prams are used and so are tow trolleys for goods going in and out of shops and the rest of it. If one of those is not actually in the physical possession of a person who is stopped, what I wanted in this amendment was to make it clear that a garda could search those things as well.”
“I move amendment No. 14: In page 10, line 2, to delete “do either or both” and substitute “do any or all”. The purpose of amendment No. 14 is to make textual space for amendment No. 15. The purpose of amendment No. 15 is to widen the power to search a person to include to "search any container or wheeled carrier or luggage which the member suspects to be or have been in the control or possession of a person suspected under this section or to have been abandoned by any such person;”." It seems to me that it should not be narrowing the power of search to the person. A member of An Garda Síochána might say, "You seemed to drop a rucksack" or "Who owns that rucksack? I am going to look at that as well." That seems to me a sensible thing.”
“I am not asking the Minister because I have not put an amendment down, but would he consider, at the very least, between now and Report Stage that the almost universal application of this section should be controlled to some extent rather than simply giving gardaí the right to demand the name, address and date of birth of anybody they have reasonable grounds to suspect has committed any offence, whatever the offence committed? It seems to me it is too broad.”
“Offences can mean a lot of things. Should the fact that a person might have in the past committed an offence make him or her liable, no matter where he or she is or in what circumstance, to a demand that he or she give his or her name, address and age to a member of An Garda Síochána on the hazard that if he or she does not do so or does so in a misleading way, he or she commits an offence under this Act? It seems to me that this power is located in a stop and search part of the Act but it is not located in its terms to being exercised in any particular place at all.”
“Would the Minister care to comment on whether this power to demand the name and address of someone who is suspected of having committed an offence should be somehow circumscribed to situations where that person is in a public place, and that it cannot happen in a private home or another place? The definition of "public place" in the Act is fairly generous because it would include most dancehalls, for example, Copper Face Jacks - you name it, it would cover them all. However, I am concerned with people who are not in a public place within the definition of this Act. It seems to give an unlimited power to members of An Garda Síochána to demand a person's name and address and age if a garda believes or suspects on reasonable grounds that he or she has committed an offence. I find that a worrying power. Is the term "offence" limited?”
“The Minister might perhaps enlighten me a little bit on this. I note this section is part of Part 2 of the Bill, which is headed "STOP AND SEARCH". Section 8 itself does not actually require that the stop and search power be exercised in a public place as a precondition to a member of An Garda Síochána making the demand for information provided for under section 8. I am slightly worried, I have to say, that it would enable a member of An Garda Síochána on private property to start asking people for their names and addresses, and make it an offence under section 15(a) to either not give a name or address or, alternatively, give a misleading address or whatever.”
“I accept that is not just a possibility but also in some cases a probability, but on the other hand, unless we are to walk away from the Misuse of Drugs Act regime in its entirety, even including the use of cannabis, it would make a nonsense of our State policy as it exists now and until it is changed to exclude controlled drugs from the definition of relevant article.”
“Cannabis can be consumed in various different ways but bearing in mind that a lot of it is done by smoking, it is also creating a circumstance in which kids are being encouraged to smoke at a time when the State's policy is to curtail smoking as a habit. There is the whole question of nicotine addiction added into it. I wanted to put these views on the record. I do not agree that it would be sensible to remove paragraph (c) from the category of relevant articles, even though I accept the proposition put forward by Senator Higgins that it is quite possible that suspicion of being in possession of cannabis opens the door to searches, and that this is done more frequently to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
“I have not seen it. I have not seen how anybody proposes keeping adults, people aged 18 and upwards, free to use cannabis and yet keep it away from kids in their teens. We are now in the process of shifting the age for purchasing alcohol from 18 to 21 in a couple of years’ time in certain circumstances. Childhood does mean something and protecting children means something. It is all very well for people who like to smoke the odd joint to say they do not want a nanny state telling them what they should or should not do, but to decriminalise cannabis resin and its consumption is a step which is seriously potentially dangerous to young people.”
“It produces mental illness and has profound psychological effects on people who become regular users of it. I noted during my own college days that the chaps in my class in university who were regular, serious consumers did seem to be affected in their general day-to-day demeanour after a while. What has happened in the meantime is that the different types of cannabis have emerged. We cannot just say that cannabis resin is either harmless or non-harmless as a substance. There are very different types of cannabis with very different capacities to produce psychotropic effects and lasting side effects, one compared with another. Senator Higgins has nobly raised the issue that Senator Ruane is anxious to have debated, but it seems to me that, first, I would like to see the report to which she refers to see whether I agree or disagree with it.”
“I do not believe that, if cannabis is available to persons over the age of 18 as a matter of choice, there is any practical way of keeping it away from kids aged 12 to 18. I do not think there is any practical way of doing that. Maybe people will disagree with me on that, but if you have a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old sitting on a bench in a park smoking a joint, there is no way that the Garda can effectively say it was criminal to allow the 16-year-old to have a pull on the joint but it was okay for a 19-year-old or 18-year-old to do it. That was then, and what worries me is that, ever since then, there has been an accumulation of evidence to the effect that cannabis consumption is dangerous, particularly for young people. It produces psychosis in a considerable number of cases.”
“I wish to briefly comment on the background of this. Senator Ruane is very strongly of the mind to decriminalise certain controlled drugs, and I just want to put on the record my views on this. When I occupied the position that the Minister occupies, there was quite a campaign in international magazines and the like to decriminalise, say, cannabis resin. There was a strong campaign that that should be done, and I had at that time misgivings about it. I wish to briefly put on the record what they were. First, to decriminalise cannabis possession, for instance, when dealing with possession by a person over the age of 18 is all very well in theory, but the real question is, does it work out in practice?”
“Europe, and in particular Britain and Germany, and to some extent France, do not have to listen to Ireland alone, because Spain is a reasonable country. They should listen to the voices of ordinary people right across Europe and they should most certainly take this opportunity now to suspend the agreement mentioned in the motion, to get across to Israel that there are costs involved in cruelty to defenceless people, that there are penalties to be paid for violating international law and that the judgment of history, which will be condign and merciless in the last analysis for what Israel has done and is doing, is not to be delayed to some future date but calls for implementation now. Therefore, I support this motion.”
“In those circumstances the Israeli Government immediately promises criminal action against the soldiers involved, but 70,000 people and probably 30,000 children lie dead in Gaza as a result of that Government's activities. Let us remember too that Hamas was held out by the right-wing Israeli people, ministers such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in the Israeli coalition Government, effectively as an agent or a guarantor that there would never be a two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is not as if Hamas was something whose creation the right wing in Israel opposed; quite the reverse, they welcomed it because it damaged moderate Palestinian control over the Palestinian areas in Israel.”
“Decent people right across the world see what is happening. It is about time that we, together at a European Union level, did something rather than simply condemn or make speeches about what has happened and what is happening. If we look at what is happening in south-west Syria, southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in all of those places Zionist Israel is expanding and grabbing land in breach of every principle of the United Nations charter, in every possible way – unfortunately with disgraceful American support from the Trump Administration. Some $21 billion has been given to them in military subsidies since 7 October, which has largely been spent in attacking innocent people. It is all very well to get outraged about a crucifix being defiled or a statue of Our Lady being mocked or whatever else.”
“The demolition of civilian infrastructure, the reduction of Gaza to a heap of rubble, the bombing of hospitals and ambulances, the random execution by snipers of people in food queues and the torture of persons detained, including sexual torture in Israel by the Israel Defense Forces – all of these things are undeniable. We talk about international law but, as somebody who has always believed in the right of Israel to exist within its internationally recognised borders, the situation has now been arrived at whereby Israel and the Israeli Government have whipped up such hostility and revulsion across the world at what they are doing that they have done more damage to the idea of a Jewish state and to the reputation of that state than any of their rabid critics could ever have imagined.”
“I welcome the Minister of State here today. I also welcome the motion tabled by Senator O'Loughlin. I agree with everything stated therein. In the immediate aftermath of 7 October 2023, I spoke in this House about what was likely to happen as a result. I pointed out, more or less with uncanny accuracy, what the result would be if Benjamin Netanyahu unleashed military force on Gaza. Some 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza since. Nothing in the horrific attack perpetrated by Hamas on innocent people on 7 October 2023 justifies the ferocity of what has been done.”
“The arbitral system envisaged by CETA is unnecessary and it is a precedent that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should in future avoid. The Department should say Ireland does not need and is not signing up to these types of provisions, which are in effect elevating international capital to coequal status with sovereign states. That is not in the Irish interest or the people’s interest and ultimately it is not consistent with the spirit of our Constitution.”
“We are elevating international capital to an equivalent position on the plinth of international law with a private investor's interests on the one hand, and with a state's capacity to govern its own jurisdiction in a democratic manner on the other hand. International capital has no such rights. It does not have those rights. It should not be accorded those rights. In the last analysis, every member state of the European Union and every member of the United Nations must do its utmost to preserve its own capacity to fend off challenges or threatened challenges from international capital when it conflicts with the sovereign independence of the institutions of that state. I will finish by saying that CETA is unnecessary insofar as it is not yet in operation.”
“We should not do so for one very solid reason: every Canadian investor should have total confidence in the Irish legal order to uphold his or her rights in Ireland. That may not be true in terms of confidence in all of the member states in the European Union, but it is true about Ireland. We have a comparative advantage in that our legal system is totally trusted by outside investors. The experience since the provisional entry into force of CETA has shown that the issue of whether Ireland should or should not be bound by the arbitral courts has in no way inhibited Canadian-Irish trade or investment. My last point is an ideological one.”
“The court took a different view. Now we have the Attorney General effectively advising – if the Minister of State's description of his advice is correct – that this makes everything constitutional - that we are amending the Arbitration Act to accommodate this. All I am saying is we may think that in relation to domestic enforcement but in the end the European Court of Justice will have the final say. I cannot believe that it would uphold a unilateral provision which, in the words of the Attorney General, can be amended or repealed at the wish of the Oireachtas – that that changes Ireland's obligations under the statute. I will conclude by saying this: we should not ratify CETA. Other states are not ratifying CETA.”
“I say that because the Vienna Convention and the Washington Convention – all of these things – make it quite clear that where a treaty or international agreement is adhered to by a member state, if you want an opt-out in terms of your domestic law, that has to be signalled to everybody so that everybody else who is party to the agreement knows that it is the situation. I want also to make the point that the Attorney General, when confronted with the interaction of CETA with the 2010 Act said the following in his submission to the court. He said nothing prevents the Oireachtas from amending or even repealing the 2010 Act if it wished. The interaction of CETA with the 2010 Act cannot credibly be suggested to constitutionally diminish sovereignty. That was the position of the Attorney General in the court when he made a submission.”
“He had, but in respect of many of them, he did not. He effectively dismissed – if I may use that phrase – the views of Mr. Justice Charleton in a laconic way. What I am saying is that if this matter ever comes before an Irish court, and if it ever gets to the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule on Ireland's refusal to implement the award of an arbitral court under the CETA agreement, or any other agreement, on constitutional grounds, which has become binding as a matter of European law, the European Court of Justice will have jurisdiction to determine that issue if it is asked by an unhappy investor. As I said on the last occasion, I would put my life savings on the proposition that they would say that Ireland cannot do that.”
“I say that because if somebody came to the courts in Ireland and was confronted by a defence by the Irish Government that to implement the agreement would contravene the Irish constitutional order, the dissatisfied Canadian investor or whoever else it may be under some future agreement could ask the Irish court to ask the European Court of Justice to rule as to whether Ireland's refusal to implement the award was consistent with the law of the European Union, and on that matter I favour hugely the view taken by Mr. Justice Charleton rather than the view taken by the majority in the Supreme Court. I want to make one final point. The Minister of State on the last occasion correctly said that one judge, to wit the Chief Justice, who was in the minority, had responded to some of Mr. Justice Charleton's points.”
“I want to intervene to mention that while I was temporarily out of the Chamber the Minister of State took it upon himself to say I was dismissive of Mr. Justice Gerard Hogan. I am not dismissive of him at all. He is a good friend and a jurist whom I admire greatly. I am however dismissive of the suggestion that Ireland can unilaterally and without making a protocol or reservation of any kind in acceding to the CETA agreement reserve unto itself in safety the right to refuse to implement awards of the arbitral courts on the grounds that they conflict with the Irish constitutional order.”
“To be honest, I have always thought that if my privacy is intruded upon by the Garda being able to look at my phone records for two years back to see who I have been contacting, I do not see how my civil liberties are dramatically changed if that period is six years. Especially in relation to subversion and very serious crime, that was a foolish mistake. I put on the record my full support for the Minister on this matter and my regret that he cannot go further, for instance, to prevent graffiti being put up. These are not serious offences, but somebody should be able to use CCTV in some places to stop people defacing streets in circumstances like that. Insofar as this Bill goes, it has my total support.”
“We provided, in the 2005 Act, for the use of CCTV by An Garda Síochána and by local authorities, and then we ran into the activism of the European Union, which began to restrict, under data protection law, the use of data in a way which has very seriously handicapped the use of a CCTV system, even when a local authority wants it as a general measure to discourage criminality. One only has to think of the Graham Dwyer case to see that the EU has thoughtlessly said that data which an Irish telecommunications company used to retain for civil law purposes for six years should not be available, except up to two years. These are foolish and unnecessary restrictions.”
“I welcome the Minister to the House and welcome this Bill entirely without reservation, except that it may lean too far backwards in restricting the use of these methods to assist An Garda Síochána. I fully accept that European law is a constraint in this matter. I merely wanted to put on the record of the House that it is now more than 20 years since I went, with the then Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, to the United States of America and inspected CCTV systems run in Chicago and other places to reduce crime in those cities.”
“The guidelines that I had in mind were not designed to stop the gardaí from being effective, but merely to state basic principles that anybody who wishes to deploy such methods should bear in mind, having regard to standards of decency and ethical behaviour, whether there is a likelihood that it will ever come to public notice.”
“To me, that is a basic proposition of decency and ethics which may never ever come to light at all, yet members of An Garda Síochána are not, as I understand it, really prevented from using such unethical tactics on the basis that the end justifies the means. There is not a public statement even of minimal standards of ethical behaviour involving recruitment of informants, management of informants, methods used to get people to be informants, and the extent of deceptions which can be employed. I think of the woman in England who had an affair with an undercover police officer for many years and thought that she had a boyfriend. She discovered that she did not have a boyfriend, but a police spy pretending to be her boyfriend for a number of years. That would not necessarily come to a court case, but it is behaviour which is very unethical.”
“Big, in circumstances where they would not have ever put themselves in that position if they were left alone in the first place. It is not the case that every instance of covert policing or use of deception and the like, of an unethical kind, always ends up with the safeguard that evidence, which is the fruit of such behaviour, comes to light in the criminal justice system and the courts, the Minister, or a supervisory judge are in a position to know that has happened. I believe there is a strong case for minimum ethical standards to apply, so that a person who is no danger to anybody but would be a useful informant is not led into a situation by deception which exposes that person to retribution by criminal elements, on the one hand, or brings to their mind a fear of prosecution, on the other hand.”
“I thank the Minister for his reply. I sympathise with a number of the points he has made. It does seem that some things should be declared off limits, publicly. The Minister said that the courts, rules of admissibility of evidence and the like are sufficient to deal with a lot of these matters. Up to a point, I agree with him. His answer presupposes that unethical behaviours will have their comeuppance through the judicial and courts systems. I am not quite clear in my own mind that is always the case. People can be compromised by unethical behaviour who are never charged with anything. If you want to get at Mr. Big you might get at Mr. Big's niece or nephew, get them into trouble and put them in the position that they fear being exposed to criminal prosecution, or to retribution by Mr.”
“The public should be satisfied that members of An Garda Síochána may not cross the line without sanction if they breach what most people would consider decent investigative techniques. I fully understand that the security of the State sometimes requires covert activity by our security forces and that they cannot all the time operate on the basis of utterly transparent engagement with those who are suspected of wrongdoing of a very serious kind. It also seems there is a very strong case for a code of conduct to be laid down by the Minister to ensure people who might not otherwise commit crimes do not find themselves being encouraged by members of An Garda Síochána to do so in order to obtain convictions or intelligence. That is what this amendment is intended to do.”
“I remember one particular case where a member of An Garda Síochána was subject to discipline for failing to disclose his source in respect of informers. There did not appear to be at that time, although I believe there are protocols in existence, regulating how far you could go in guaranteeing immunity for persons who are involved in criminality in order to spy on other persons who are equally or more guilty. I refer to those kind of situations. It is with that in view that this amendment has been tendered. It is not demanding that all of these activities stop; it is simply demanding that there are ethical standards beyond which one cannot go, in using covert policing, of an agent provocateur, entrapment or encouragement.”
“What I am really suggesting here is that it is about time there is a publicly known code, which binds members of An Garda Síochána when using covert investigative techniques not to trespass over the line of entrapment on the one hand or to act as agent provocateurs on the other hand in a manner that breaches what most people would consider to be decent ethical standards of policing. That is the purpose of this amendment. It is a fairly straightforward purpose, but what worries me is that we have examples in the neighbouring jurisdiction of what can and cannot happen in the absence of clear guidelines that are understood and which are enforced at least within An Garda Síochána by a hierarchy of authority that is understood.”
“It has been uncovered in England that there were some pretty hair-raising activities by infiltrating members of their relevant police forces involving not merely befriending but actually engaging in sexual relations with some members of protest movements. We have no published code in Ireland on such matters. I do not want to rehearse matters that have got quite a deal of publicity, but the difference between being an agent provocateur on the one hand and a credible infiltrator on the other hand is very narrow. At the very least, if those tactics are regarded as necessary I would like to see that there was some ethical code as to how far people could and could not go in creating situations where other people are enabled to take steps which amount to offences.”
“Let us suppose An Garda Síochána is concerned that the pro-Palestine, pro-Gaza movement in Ireland was being infiltrated by extremists. What steps is it entitled to take to infiltrate the movement with a view to effectively gather intelligence about what it is doing? How far can someone go in infiltration? At what point does it become unlawful to appear to be encouraging other persons to take steps which could give rise to a criminal prosecution? For instance, we know that there have been criminal proceedings in respect to people interfering with certain aeroplanes at Shannon Airport, but is it legitimate for members of An Garda Síochána to pretend to be involved in planning such escapades? If it is necessary, at what level in An Garda Síochána must there be authority for such steps to be taken?”
“We are doing it - as the Minister said earlier - in response to the Emmett Corcoran case, and other cases. When we look at what happens in the neighbouring jurisdiction in respect of members of their police forces acting covertly, real ethical problems do arise. I refer, for instance, to members of An Garda Síochána infiltrating protest groups and the like, pretending to be part of a movement and creating false alibis for themselves in terms of their identity and the like so that they can internally spy on a movement. I am not against that in every circumstance but there should be guidelines as to when and how it can be done and at what level it can be authorised in An Garda Síochána. For instance, let us take a current example.”
“Prior to making the regulations, the Minister would consult with the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána and with the Policing and Community Safety Authority on the implementation guidelines he proposes to make. The guidelines should be submitted to both Houses of the Oireachtas for approval. Since we are dealing in this legislation with police powers, there is a significant case for the basis on which members of An Garda Síochána can use, for instance, covert human information sources and the use of covert investigative activities involving the use of pretence or subterfuge with the purpose of facilitating other persons to commit or attempt to commit criminal offences to be the subject of publicly understood guidelines by which members of An Garda Síochána would be bound to act. We are giving them significant powers in this legislation.”
“This amendment proposes to require the Minister for justice to make regulations, which will be referred to in the legislation as "implementation guidelines", for the exercise of powers by members of An Garda Síochána in respect of, first, the use of covert human information sources and, second, the use of covert investigative activities involving the use of pretence or subterfuge with the purpose of facilitating other persons to commit or attempt to commit criminal offences. The proposed amendment also provides that it would be the duty of members of An Garda Síochána to comply with the provisions of implementation guidelines that the Minister would make.”
“(3) The Minister shall consult with the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána and with the Policing and Community Safety Authority in relation to implementation guidelines which the Minister proposes to make or amend under this section. (4) Before making regulations for implementation guidelines under this section the Minister shall publish the proposed regulations in draft form and should not make such regulations unless each House of the Oireachtas has passed a resolution approving the proposed regulations in such draft form.".”
“I move amendment No. 4: In page 8, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following: "Implementation guidelines 6. (1) The Minister shall make regulations governing the exercise of powers by members of An Garda Síochána in respect of the following matters and those regulations are referred to in this Act as "implementation guidelines": (a) the use of covert human information sources, and (b) the use of covert investigative activities involving the use of pretence or subterfuge with the purpose of facilitating other persons to commit or attempt to commit criminal offences. (2) It shall be the duty of members of An Garda Síochána to comply with the provisions of implementation guidelines made under this section.”
“Why should the situation be dramatically different relating to a journalist's home or workplace, on the one hand, and, on the other, a journalist in a car on the public highway? Why should there be such a two-tiered approach to the protections available to journalists? That is the point I am making.”
“I do not regard it as in any way demonstrated in Irish law that a prosecution would be stopped because a garda had at some point, in order to give himself or herself a good indication of who the offender was, seized a journalist's papers. I do not see there being anything unlikely about that. I fully support what the Minister is saying about electronic devices, the protections and the situation that arose in the Emmett Corcoran case. I fully understand that that needs to be addressed. I am making a different point. I am saying that we are introducing stop-and-search powers for any offence of theft of any kind whatsoever and there is no protection at all for journalists in that context. There is no protection whatever that corresponds to a search of a journalist's home, office or workplace.”
“You cannot search the file in the back of my car or the notebook I keep as a journalist to see who I was speaking to in such and such a pub down the road". We are not doing that in this legislation but we are doing it in the case of a garda who thinks that the journalist's notebook is back at home in his or her house. In those circumstances, we are saying that a District Court judge has to be warned, all of the assessments and all the rest of it come into play, and the protections for the journalist come into play. Apart from saying that there is something "unlikely" about the scenario I am outlining, I am not hearing the Minister saying what the consequences would be.”
“I am saying that we should look at what is available to a journalist by way of protection if a member of An Garda Síochána decides to invoke the stop and search powers, as opposed to going to a District Court judge and getting a warrant to stop and search the journalist or the journalist's car with a view to gaining access to evidence. I will give an example. Let us suppose there is a non-digital camera sitting in the back of a car, or a photocopied document that is suspected by the Garda to be the kind of material that will give it the lead they need in an investigation, and it suspects it is most likely in the possession of a journalist who they have seen talking to somebody who knows something about a case. What protections are we putting in place for a journalist to say, "No.”
“I do not see anything fanciful at all about a member of An Garda Síochána, who knows there is evidence in a car relating to the commission of an offence, stopping and searching that car and looking at the evidence. I do not think there is anything fanciful about that. Section 4 the theft Act is so wide it could deal with somebody who stole from their employer or stole from their place of work. Evidence relating to that could consist of photocopies of documents in the possession of a journalist. I am not against the Minister's proposals.”