Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The Minister could have amended it and retained the principle. It seeks to grant powers of compellability to the coroner. He may order a juror or witness to comply with a summons and make such other orders as may be considered necessary. The second strand of the legislation that Deputy Rabbitte has proposed is that witnesses and jurors should be compellable and have to turn up, particularly witnesses. Currently the legislation specifies that the only penalty is IR£5, or €6.35, and no one would pay a blind bit of notice to that. We have obviously strengthened the legislation with stiffer penalties, but there are, nevertheless, important witnesses without whom the coroner's work must be frustrated and the family of the deceased unable to achieve a proper conclusion.

A good example relates to a natural health therapist in Mayo. On more than one occasion where death occurred and the witness was summonsed, she refused to attend the coroner's inquest. That person was the unqualified medical practitioner central to the inquest and yet could absent herself with no questions asked regarding the person's death. There is no way under such circumstances that one can bring about a satisfactory conclusion to the inquest. There must therefore be some powers to enforce compellability as well as the penalty. Perhaps if there is a drafting problem, that might be it. The intent was to strengthen this section of the legislation so that the effectiveness of the coroner's court might be underpinned.

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