Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I agree with the thrust of the Deputy's remarks but not with how he expressed some of them. Reform in this area is long overdue. The Coroners Act was introduced in 1962 and even then was unduly restrictive and problematic. Now in 2005 the time is long past for reform of the coroner service.

The choice that confronted me was whether to produce what is called a break-out Bill to provide for an increase in penalties and powers of compulsion for witnesses or to proceed with a Bill which would deal with the wider second issue raised by Deputy Costello. Rightly or wrongly, I came to the view that a break-out Bill would take more parliamentary time. It was also extremely unlikely that, in my time as Minister, I would succeed in bringing through this House two separate coroners Bills. I intend to address the issues in a single Bill. I hope to have the text of that Bill before the Government and to have it in the House in the autumn of this year. I could have chosen to take the other route and introduced a two or three-section break-out Bill. However, I believe that had I done so, I would never have brought the second coroners Bill before the House and would only have done a sticking plaster job on the existing inadequate system and would not have carried out the fundamental reform necessary to upgrade the coroner service.

See this speech in context