Tom Parlon (Laois-Offaly, Progressive Democrats)

The constitutionality of the current position under section 15(5) of the 1956 Act states an officer shall be "afforded an opportunity of making to the appropriate authority any representations he may wish to offer". This has not been challenged up to now. It would be a perverse interpretation of the legislation to suggest that the provision of the right for a person to submit representations through a decision-maker does not impose a de facto duty upon the decision-maker to consider such representations.

A basic principle of fair procedure is that a person entrusted with a discretion, in this case whether to impose a disciplinary sanction, must consider all relevant matters and must exclude all irrelevant matters from his or her considerations. To suggest the text of the Bill confers no responsibility upon the appropriate authority to consider representations from the person whom the decision will directly affect is to suggest that the appropriate authority does not have to conform to this basic principle of fair procedure in deciding whether to proceed with disciplinary action. I do not accept this suggestion and, therefore, I consider it unnecessary to insert any further amendment to section 5(3). I do not accept the proposed amendments.

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