Mr. Ronan Lupton:

There is oversight now in the heads of Bill, which is obviously a good development. There is a question mark in my head with regard to whether there should be an independent authority, which might act more quickly than the judicial function. In other words, if it is going to court, a specific court needs to be designated. I know there may be designated courts across the country to assist Assistant Commissioner Kelly and his workforce in terms of getting warrants, production orders or whatever it happens to be. There is that issue. We now are in that space where the supervision will be correct, and that is a good development. I do have a question about ex post review. In other words, where something happens in an emergency, the member of the Garda or whoever requires the information must go back and justify the position and that is all fine. Members will have seen in my submission the issues relating to the Murray report, with which I know Dr. McIntyre will deal. A very significant issue involving journalists' records being procured in the context of a Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, inquiry gave rise to the Murray report and the effort that went into that. There needs to be a situation where certain categories of citizens have different types of rights. I am really talking about journalists in that regard. That is something that must be front and centre. There must be an ability for a District Court judge, or a High Court judge in the case of State security issues, to be able to convene aninter partesor two-way hearing to seek and hear challenges if challenges can brought in respect of procurement, production and general preservation orders that might arise in the context of this legislation.