Dr. Gavin Barrett:

That is a very legitimate question. I would say "Yes". Historically, much of the co-operation that has taken place at justice and home affairs level, and police and judicial co-operation at European level has been driven by the various executives. That is less the case now, because we have a more community-based system, even though the European Community is not there anymore. There is more involvement of the European Parliament and the other institutions. Previously, these issues were very much dominated by the Council. National governments tend to have their own priorities. The Schengen Agreement was always a kind of a balance. On the one hand, it liberated matters as border controls were removed, but on the other hand, in order to compensate for the removal of border controls, we got increased judicial and police co-operation. Ireland and the UK proposed to opt into the repressive measures, but not into the border busting measures. It is something I have always been a little bit uncomfortable about, because the two measures were meant to march in lock-step with one another. For the time being, that does not arise anyway, because we just do not have the financial means to set up the likes of the Schengen information system, which is a computerised database.

I think that it is important that we opt in to measures other than repressive measures. We also have measures under judicial co-operation that guarantee rights of individuals, such as victims' rights, the rights of accused persons and so on. That balance has not always been the correct one in the past, but proposals are being made on measures for victims' rights, bail and so on, and it is important that we in Ireland consider very carefully the need to opt into not just the repressive measures, but also the measures that guarantee rights.

There have been valid concerns on the part of Conservative Party backbenchers. The European arrest warrant is not a perfect instrument. The biggest problem with the arrest warrant concerns proportionality. I mentioned that the largest number of surrenders by another state in the European Union comes from the United Kingdom. I did not mention the largest number of surrenders to another state by Ireland, because that is not the UK, but to Poland. That is the case in virtually every state in the EU and this is because the Poles require the surrender of persons in respect of offences which can be absolutely trivial. These are tiny offences which do not even justify the cost of sending persons back to Poland. Why exactly that is the case is a matter of Polish law and practice, but it has led to some fairly ridiculous situations materialising and that is a concern. The UK is trying to deal with proportionality in its legislation. I would be interested to see how acceptable it is to the European Commission in writing the proportionality rule into UK legislation. Proportionality is a principle of European Union law, so I think there should be some rule for its application, but we will have to wait and see on that.

The other concern in the UK has been in respect of persons who are being surrendered and detained for a long pretrial period in another country, but when the trial comes up, it is decided there is no case to answer and the person is returned home. In principle, that is alright but the person has a couple of months of his life in a prison in a foreign country. That is a matter of concern as well, and these concerns are legitimate. I note from Theresa May's talk that what she proposed to do was to take advantage of the proposed legislation at European level, whereby it will not be normal to imprison people like that anymore and they will have a right to be released. It is interesting that she sees the solution as being at a European level.

I would not say that the concerns of the Conservative Party backbenchers are entirely without foundation, but there tends sometimes to be an exaggerated focus on the problems and not sufficient acknowledgement of the advantages. An example would be the attempted bombing of the Shepherd's Bush tube station.

One of the perpetrators fled to Rome immediately afterwards and was surrendered back to the United Kingdom within a matter of weeks. This would not have happened without the European arrest warrant. I refer also to a very prominent case some time ago, which we all remember, of an individual who fled to France with a minor. That individual was returned to the United Kingdom by virtue of an arrest warrant. I agree that, as with any measures, there are concerns and I share some of those concerns. However, whether those concerns justify turning one's back on the entire European arrest warrant system is a different matter. I am not sure if it was politics or common sense that prevailed in the UK. I suspect it was politics but we have reason to be grateful for that.