Mr. Muiris O'Connor:

I do not think so. Holles Street hospital is exceptional, being so on the street. With the two entrances, I do not think it will have an area where people could protest directly below the window of any of the rooms, but we will look at that, and I thank the Deputy for raising it.

The issue of warnings has been quite difficult. It is something that was advised to us by external counsel in the context of the proportionality and the implementability of the Act and the due fairness to any potential offender to clarify that he or she is in danger of breaking the law.

We are actively looking at the advice from the Garda to lean into the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994. If we were to go down that route - and we will be getting advices on it in the coming days - there is a warning on how the Garda engages with people. The Garda explains the law and the safe access zone, if this is what we were to do, and people are charged with failure to comply with a direction from a garda. There is an element of warning there but it is the recording or documenting of a warning and retention of that warning that is the difficulty. That is not currently done-----