Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

It is regrettable that the Minister of State is not willing to accept the amendment, even though he has referred to section 9. The section should be brought forward to make it clear at an early stage in the Bill that full protection will be provided and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform must take account of the ECHR to ensure the State is fully compliant with the convention.

The State is obliged to consider all likely consequences of a request, including the safeguards I seek to provide in the legislation. The Irish Human Rights Commission suggested an explicit mention should be made of the ECHR in this section to ensure the Minister of the day cannot ignore his or her obligations under the convention and sentenced persons can enjoy full protection. If the conditions of detention in the designated country do not comply with the ECHR and are condemned, an alternative, the European arrest warrant, is open to the Irish authorities if they are seeking to ensure a detainee serves his or her sentence. They can pursue the case in that fashion.

We had a spat earlier regarding Colombia. That state would never satisfy the conditions and safeguards provided for in the legislation or the European arrest warrant and, therefore, that matter does not arise. If my amendment were accepted, the detention of the three men in Colombia would be designated torture as they were permanently under threat. Their food had to be brought into the prison because of the danger of poisoning within and weapons were used within the jail by right wing groups. Those men were in grave danger, yet Fine Gael would seek to make them serve an unjust sentence. Fine Gael would probably have extradited Michael Collins for his deeds had the legislation been in place back then.

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