Mr. Liam Herrick:

I want to pick up on the point raised by Deputy Costello regarding head 15. From our perspective, this is one of the most important provisions of the Bill. The possibility of Garda access to third-party CCTV opens the possibility of a broad volume of surveillance information being accessed by the Garda. Head 13 provides strong judicial oversight of that power. However, head 15 potentially completely circumvents and undermines that protection because if the Garda can access this third-party material on Garda authorisation for 72 hours, there will be a strong temptation to use that provision and circumvent the judicial oversight. Therefore, in our view head 15 should either be completely removed or significantly amended before it proceeds.