Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their submissions and opening statements. I thank especially the secretariat for providing a very good overview as usual. I also thank Mr. O'Sullivan for the presentation he gave me and another member of my party at the digital innovation centre, as I think it is called, in the Phoenix Park a few months ago. It was of great assistance prior to this meeting.

It is a good thing this Bill was not rushed, as was intended last summer, when it was to be tacked on to the end of another Bill. There are clearly discrepancies in what some people are saying about the data. On the initial list mentioned last summer were child abductions and very important and serious cases, and then we have an expanded list provided today with the heads of the Bill. It seems strange that some of the cases are in there. It is obvious the riot-type cases have been included subsequently, but this seems to be dealt with on an ad hocbasis. Murder and manslaughter are in there but attempted murder does not seem to be there. Sexual assault is not included and section 3 assault, which was so serious the sentence was increased last year to five years' imprisonment, is not on the list whereas section 4 assault is. As such, it is an unusual list. There does not seem to be any great consistency in it. It seems to be evolving, like the legislation. The code of practice also seems a bit strange. It would be much better to have it in the Bill. Leaving it to the Minister is not a good idea. It should include record-keeping, how to conduct identifications and review processes, etc. It is also important there be a pilot scheme to see how well this technology works given that it is, as I saw in the Phoenix Park, evolving all the time.

There are officials from the Department of Justice present. A look-back review and risk assessment should be built into this. As the Commissioner said, there must be safeguards against discriminatory effects to ensure proportionality, especially where human interaction comes into digital technology. We had the Declan Tynan case, which was registered as a miscarriage of justice. From my practice I can think of three cases off the top of my head where a brother of the person who actually did a crime was wrongly identified by gardaí who were involved in cases. It was presented to me, as the solicitor going to the Garda station, as being cases where the individuals were bang to rights, but I could tell them in two of the cases that they had the wrong man. By the way, one of the people who was wrongly identified went on to admit to the crime even though it was clearly not him but he was not prepared to say it was his brother who was there. That is just an example of human error creating a problem which is then aggravated.

On the heads of Bill, it is obvious every contact leaves a trace. In gangland crime there are very few confessions anymore and it is forensics and digital footprints that lead to many of the cases. We do not want a case, one of which was referenced by the Commissioner in his opening statement, where an individual garda rolls up his sleeves for 12 months to go through CCTV and basically has to go through a truckload of evidence. I ask the Law Society for its opinion on head 43(c), for example. What do its representatives think of that given the Dwyer case and the old section 29 of the Offences Against the State Act? It seems obvious there should be an application made, perhaps by a relatively senior Garda who is involved in a case, to a District Court judge.

It cannot be the case, unless it is extremely urgent and the security of the State is at stake or someone is about to be killed, that there would not be time to find a District Court judge who would have oversight of it. That will give some kind of clarity to the process. The garda who knows the case can make the application, probably on a sworn affidavit, and a District Court judge can make a decision. We looked at the community safety legislation last week. It originally started off that it had to go to the chief superintendent. Following Seanad amendments, that was reduced down to allowing an inspector to deal with it. Because of the way the case is evolving it is far better - subject to what the Law Society and others may think - that we have judicial oversight in the form of a District Court judge. The Garda Commissioner should have a record of all applications and authorisations over the 12-month period so that we would have a look-back to see how it is going. That is really the one point on which I wanted to ask a question.