Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It may not be a problem. Remember that the purpose of this is to give An Garda Síochána the powers to stop the harassment of people using the service and the service providers. This Bill most definitely does that. I take the Deputy's point. There is a secondary point about people receiving multiple warnings around the country but I am very confident that the primary purpose of this Bill will be fulfilled with what we have.

We can get hung up on one year or two years. When you think through the implementation of the Act, you have to have enough warnings given. We have all been given examples of the kind of behaviour we want to see stopped but it is not happening every day. It is reasonably intermittent. You would want enough of it to have happened, you would need the gardaí to have intervened on a number of occasions and you would probably also want to see what happens if an offence was committed or several offences were committed. How did that progress? I do not think they would be able to give us anything terribly useful within 12 months. It is really a judgment call. There is no right or wrong to it.