James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Section 10(3) of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act provides for circumstances where, under prosecution of the section on harassment where a jury returned a verdict of not guilty and a conviction was not made, it was still possible for a judge to issue a barring or distance order. That was not contained within the new provisions to replace the harassment offence. From my reading of the section, the provision appears to stand alone. An order does not necessarily have to follow from a prosecution and can come from an application in its own right. I presume it is still open to a judge to make that part of a sentence or of the outcome of prosecution, or to make an order on foot of an application in its own right. Is that the Minister's understanding of it?