Mr. Liam Herrick:

Our office is in the city centre. I have worked in the city centre of Dublin for over 20 years. The problem of public disorder and crime committed by young people is at a high level at the moment. The fact that young people are committing offences, such as selling illegal substances, breaking road traffic laws and so on, is probably a much greater problem than the fact they are wearing face coverings. I absolutely agree that there is a real question about reviewing the issue of public order and crime in the city centre at the moment. This proposal does not seem to address any of that. It deals specifically with the issue of face covering. We understand it is intended to apply to the situations of demonstrations or protests, as opposed to people committing crime and happen to be wearing face coverings while they are doing so. In that regard, we understand the purpose behind it, but the first test would be whether the current legislation is sufficient to deal with the problem.

As the Deputy knows, the powers under the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 - sections 6 and 8 of that Act - provide the gardaí with significant powers to deal with situations where people are engaged in intimidating or criminal behaviour and are seeking to frustrate the work of the gardaí and obstruct them or failure to comply. Are the powers under that legislation sufficient to deal with the problem? The problem is that in some instances during public demonstrations or protests people may use a face covering with an illegal intent or purpose, but that may already be covered under the Act.

The danger in legislating in the way that it is proposed at the moment is that we might capture a whole other category of behaviour, which should not be criminalised. There are real instances of people who wear face coverings either for health purposes, religious purposes, or, for example, to show solidarity with the people of Palestine by wearing a keffiyeh. I do not think the intention is to cover that, but unless the legislation is drafted in a precise way there is a real risk that it might do.

In the United Kingdom, where legislation was initially introduced to deal with the use of face coverings to evade justice or intimidate, there are now proposals to make the wearing a mask itself a criminal offence regardless of those associated intentions or effects. We all understand and share the objective of dealing with the same problems. However, this may be misconceived, may be unnecessary and may have unintended consequences.