Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

This is a useful amendment because there is quite a difference between a juror and a witness. It is a fault of the Coroners Act 1962 that juries for coroners courts are empanelled in a different way to other juries. They are empanelled in a very ad hoc fashion. I remember one instance where a sergeant at Store Street Garda station was running up and down the road trying to get enough jurors for a coroner's inquest on the morning of the inquest. It seems as if the empanelling of a jury is very much at the discretion of local gardaí. We will have to examine in detail how we empanel juries for coroners' inquests. For that reason, it is difficult to see how jurors and witnesses could be taken in the same way. It is no harm to make the distinction.

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