Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I greatly appreciate the witnesses taking the time to set that out. It is important to re-establish facts where we have the opportunity.

I am really interested in comparative data and the fact that the witnesses have done an analysis of the different international processes and how this process rates against the others. I am curious about the structure of the assessments. Maybe we can talk about that afterwards because I know how detailed it might be, but when Professor McEvoy was describing the cases being heard in privacy and without legal representation and so on, I was imagining placing those structures on, say, a rape trial or another in cameraprocess without the ability to cross-examine and, if, for example, the Legislature here were to propose such a model in respect of any criminal trial or indeed any process whatsoever, even an employment law process, what the academic reaction would be to that. Professor McEvoy described the London Government as reaching into the criminal justice system in every form and in every possible way, including the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, the DPP and the courts system. Is there any other comparative example of a federalised political structure whereby one element reaches into the other and disrupts it in such a fundamental way? I certainly cannot think of anything. One could not possibly imagine Canada, for example, or any other such state doing likewise. I know they are not directly comparable, but they are very similar in various ways. As for the different international processes, it is sort of the same question about the data points, the comparative analysis and how those were ranked and scored and the different things the witnesses have tested. Is there anything else remotely close to what is suggested here, or just how far does it sit out against the comparators?