Mr. Andrew Munro:

I thank the Chair and the committee for the opportunity to brief them on the general scheme and the Bill. I will try to be as brief as possible because we have provided a short briefing note on the Bill. I will speak to what is in the scheme and maybe then update the committee on some additional elements we expect to see in the published Bill which was approved for publication by Government this morning. I will also mention other things that did not make it into publication but we expect may come as amendments to the Bill, just so the committee is aware of what will come along.

Part 1 is the usual Short Title and commencement provisions. Part 2 deals with an amendment to the Courts (Establishment and Constitution) Act 1961 to increase the number of Court of Appeal judges by one to account for the fact that Ms Justice Power is abstracted from the court for the moment to deal with the tribunal of investigation into the Defence Forces. It is maintaining the strength of the Court of Appeal.

Part 3 deals with an amendment to section 62 of the International Protection Act 2015. This will reduce the requirement for experience of ordinary members of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal from five years' experience as a practising solicitor or barrister to two years. That will appear as a later part of the Bill. It is not going to be in the published Bill and it will have to be produced as an amendment. It is one of the things that happens when we are moving at speed, that not everything gets drafted in time for publication. The Attorney General's office is still working on that one and it will appear as an amendment later.

Part 4 deals with the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990. Essentially, it deals with increasing the maximum penalties available for knife-related offences. That will be renumbered and will be Part 5 in the Bill as published. Part 4 of the Bill as published will deal with an amendment to the Judicial Council Act 2019. This is in response to a Supreme Court ruling in the Delaney case around personal injuries guidelines. Having taken the advice of the Attorney General, the Bill will respond to elements of that by providing for approval by the Oireachtas of draft guidelines produced by the Judicial Council to take account of what is in that judgement.

Part 5 of the Bill will now be the amendments to the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Acts. Part 6 of the Bill, which was not in the general scheme, will deal with some miscellaneous amendments to the European Arrest Warrant Act and the Criminal Justice (Mutual Recognition of Custodial Sentences) Act. This is fixing typographical errors in those Acts. There is nothing substantial in those amendments.

To note other things that we expect, the amendment to the International Protection Act 2015 that we referred to in the letter and the scheme is to deal with a judgment of the High Court which was critical of elements of the International Protection Act whereby countries are deemed to be safe third countries. Those amendments are still being worked on with the Attorney General's office. We are just making sure we have captured everything around that that was in the High Court judgment. We will be putting in an additional test to make sure somebody will not suffer if they are returned to a safe third country, so we are adjusting that. Elements of that High Court judgement are also going to be appealed, so it is a double-headed response, if you like. We are amending the legislation but we will also be appealing some of the principles at the back of that.

That is essentially it. I have mentioned everything we expect to see in the Bill as published. I do not want to go into detail because I want to leave time for members' questions. They have seen briefing notes on most of it. I am happy to take any questions.