Dr. T.J. McIntyre:

One point about access is that the urgency provision, which the Deputy has mentioned already, does not meet the Murray recommendations. Mr. Justice Murray recommended that if an access is made under the urgency provisions there should be retrospective judicial oversight. The access might be made but the judge should then be required to evaluate whether access had been appropriately granted. The intention is obviously to avoid abuse.

The Deputy also mentioned the problem of the national security provision, that notification of the fact that access is not granted can be refused on national security grounds. That is a problem that is compounded by the fact that this Bill does not define national security so it leaves open the grounds on which notification might be refused.