Ms Clare Daly:

I am happy to see everyone again. Extending police powers is a serious matter and it is important we get it right. In the interest of brevity, I will keep my opening remarks short, and I am happy to expand on any of them. Mick Wallace would have attended but when he heard that only one of us would get to speak, I won or lost the toss depending on what way you look at it. I wish to highlight a couple of particularly problematic aspects as we see it.

First, simply placing a general obligation to protect fundamental rights is not enough. That is there already. There should be a definition contained in the Bill, something that reflects the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Just saying that it is unlawful to breach to fundamental rights is, again, not enough. There needs to be a provision that says what happens if fundamental rights are not respected. Consideration should be given to that being a specific offence with a specific penalty attached. Consideration should also be given to an explicit provision for a timely investigation when abuses occur, to be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR.

What is especially problematic is the stop and search section, including heads 9 and 16, where there is reference to a computer, which could be a smart mobile device, and it being deemed hacking equipment. This is the potential catch-all to cover warrantless searches that could capture anybody. Head 16, which allows the possibility of accessing private information and passwords, is a total breach of data protection norms and fundamental rights provisions.

In terms of head 13, particularly when every police force on the planet has been found to be guilty or responsible for racial profiling, when we deal with the area of stop and search, there should be a requirement to record the ethnicity of those stopped and searched to ward against racial profiling.

Under head 21, we see no justification whatsoever that a senior garda would issue a search warrant. This should be left with the Judiciary. There is no evidence to say it is warranted. In this field of technology, judges are easily accessible, so there should be no urgent situation that would require that.

Briefly, on the question of Garda custody, I was shocked to see head 42 subsections 6 to 8, inclusive. I am very concerned with clauses that deny the right to legal representation based on the vague ground of disruptive behaviour of the solicitor. This is unconstitutional. It is against the charter. The right to legal representation and the right to a fair trial are key. Head 52, which refers to taking fingerprints by force, is a bit dodgy as well.

The biggest problem is with head 68, which sort of undermines all the other previous safeguards. It basically states that any evidence obtained by breaching the provisions of the legislation would not be excluded as evidence. It is a carte blancheto ignore all the good provisions in the Bill and to operate in an unlawful or in a way that is abusive of rights and still have the evidence permitted. We see this as being incredibly damaging and undermining of the Bill.

I am conscious of time. Things were done differently in my day on the committee when the speaker could waffle on for ages. I hope that is as near to three minutes as is possible. There was a lot of other matter in our written submission that I did not touch on, but I am happy to answer questions on that or on the points raised today.