Dáil debates

Tuesday, 28 March 2006

Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Motion.

 

6:00 pm

Photo of Joe CostelloJoe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I expected to discuss this Bill much earlier and with fewer amendments. I previously articulated my disappointment with the manner in which the Minister produces legislation. He does not seem to have learned his lesson and does not listen to us despite his experience as Attorney General, senior counsel and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

It is almost two years since the heads of this legislation were presented — I remember attending the press conference in Government Buildings. The heads of the Bill were presented in April, the Bill was published in July 2004 and it was debated in the Dáil in January 2005 and the autumn of the same year. Now, 15 months after we last spoke on this legislation, the Minister has produced approximately 200 new amendments and the Bill has expanded by a multiple of five or six times its original size. This is a legislative shambles.

As well as the delay and the stop-start approach, the Minister has put the cart before the horse, resulting in Members debating the original legislative offering from July 2004 on Second Stage. There is no opportunity to debate the meat of this legislation, the new amendments. Two years and 200 amendments later the Minister is considering tabling further amendments to prolong the issue further. One cannot emphasise how unsatisfactory that is, given the co-operation by the Opposition in agreeing to take Committee Stage next week, when the Minister wishes to deal with a large part of the Bill. We received these amendments last week — and they are still not properly printed — and it is ridiculous that we must put forward our amendments in the space of a couple of days, given the disparity in the availability of resources to the Minister and the Opposition. We do not have the resources to respond in this fashion, yet we have agreed to co-operate with the Minister because we are keen to see the legislative process expedited. Given the two-year timespan since publication of the heads of the Bill, the Opposition should be given a decent opportunity to prepare amendments.

The amendments contain provisions for major new offences, including anti-social behaviour orders, firearms offences and firearms amnesties, organised crime and drug trafficking. While most of these are welcome, many of them are controversial and the Minister's actions have prevented a full Dáil debate on them. Despite the plethora of amendments produced, many important areas have been omitted. One of the most glaring omissions is the failure to address interviews with suspects in Garda custody. The Criminal Justice Bill 2004 confers extensive new powers on the Garda Síochána and extends the period of detention for questioning from six hours, as provided for in the 1984 legislation, to 24 hours, with an eight-hour break, amounting to 32 hours in Garda custody without judicial supervision or guaranteed access to a lawyer.

The Morris tribunal revealed shocking admissions of serious abuse of two women suspects in Garda custody in Donegal, the bugging of the interview rooms and unauthorised obtaining of telephone records. It is over 25 years since Mr. Justice Barra Ó Briain recommended to the government of the day that all interviews of suspects in custody should be taped. The Minister should consider a statutory provision in this legislation to make audio and video recording of Garda interviews mandatory. Given the technology available, such a measure should not pose a problem. This would prevent abuse of those held in custody and would protect gardaí from false or spurious allegations made against them. Dundalk Garda station, one of the largest in the country, still has no audio-visual equipment in its interview rooms. The two reports of the Morris tribunal influenced the formulation of the Garda Síochána legislation we passed last year, particularly on the ombudsman commission, the inspectorate and the improvement of management structures. All these were highlighted by Mr. Justice Frederick Morris and that was important in the legislation the Minister introduced. Now Mr. Justice Morris has again presented a serious situation as illustrated by yesterday's revelations. I do not know what has emerged today. Today's edition of The Irish Times reports what Detective Sergeant John White said when he withdrew his original statement to the Morris tribunal. He admitted to abusive, excessive and inappropriate language during the interrogation, acknowledged that the spirit and the letter of Garda custody regulations were breached, accepted his conduct fell below acceptable standards and agreed with many claims made by the two women. He said graphic photographs of the body of Mr. Richie Barron were shown to the women and crude accusations of infidelity by Ms McConnell's husband, Mr. Mark McConnell, were made to her and Ms Brolly. Ms Brolly was denied access to her husband and a chair was roughly skidded across the room during Ms McConnell's interview. The lights were switched on and off during the interview and information was kept out of the interview notes. Detective Sergeant White said:

The mood in the Garda station was one of high excitement and anticipation at the prospect of solving the murder. It was made clear to me that my role was to "break" the persons to be interviewed for the purpose of corroborating the suspicions of An Garda Síochána.

He said he has always believed the interview rooms at Letterkenny Garda station are bugged and claims he was supplied with the telephone records of Ms Brolly's husband but was warned not to include them in interview notes because they had been obtained in an unauthorised manner.

This is a litany of breaches of proper procedures and law, and is not a report but one day's revelations of the Morris tribunal. We must take those into consideration and one way to do so is to make a statutory provision that all interviews of suspects are audio-visually recorded. While the Minister has done much good work on installing this equipment throughout the country, when an important station such as Dundalk does not have it, there are obviously major gaps. I mention this as one of the glaring omissions because this legislation gives enormous power to the Garda in many areas including detention and search and we must ensure that safeguards are in place.

There are other important areas of omission. When the Ferns Report was published the Minister made a commitment to bring forward appropriate amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill to deal with the failure to alleviate the risk of the sexual abuse of a child when somebody knows about such abuse but neglects to bring that information to the authorities. While I understood this was to be one of the major amendments, and that the Minister may make a further amendment to that effect, it should be among the amendments before us because the Minister promised it during the Ferns Report debate. There is no mention of indexation of fines, which could easily have been brought forward in this legislation. It would be useful when we wait for such long periods of time.

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