Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Organised crime type offences do not form part of the backlog. The Hederman committee reviewed the Special Criminal Court and came to the conclusion that the existence of the court was justified by subversive activity alone, that is, it was justified regardless of whether there was or was not some organised crime case which might or might not be sent to the Special Criminal Court.

Deputy Costello referred to the ingredients of the offences set out in Part 1 of Schedule 2. I refer the Deputy to section 4 which states

"terrorist activity" means an act that is committed in or outside that State and that -

(a) if committed in the State, would constitute an offence specified in Part 1 of Schedule 2, and

(b) is committed with the intention of—

(i) seriously intimidating a population,

(ii) unduly compelling a government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act, or

(iii) seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a State or an international organisation;

Paragraph (b) is important too. I accept the Deputy's point on the first part of the equation, the Schedule on page 88. However, one must take into account that the preconditions in section 4 paragraph (b) seriously restrict an apparently broad category of crimes to ones which have a terrorist function.

The other point one must bear in mind is that during the passage of this Bill, it was made very clear that the scope of terrorism was being further restricted to meet some of the criticisms made in this House on Second Stage. To prevent some of the cases mentioned on Second Stage, we, as promised, inserted into the legislation a provision stating that no offences could be proceeded with on an extra-territorial basis, or with an extra-territorial dimension, unless the Attorney General gave his consent to it. We spent a long time considering exactly how we would deal with the legitimate points raised on Second Stage in this House on that issue. This is formula we came up with in the end.

I take on board the point the Deputies made in regard to a second Special Criminal Court being established. However, a fair point to make is that if we establish a second Special Criminal Court and if the objective basis for its establishment continues, then nobody's rights will be interfered with by the fact that the trial it gives is speedier than otherwise. It does not dilute anybody's right. Nobody's rights are enhanced by the fact there is delay, while nobody's rights are interfered with by the fact that delay is removed.

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