Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The DPP can lay alternative counts and there is a provision for alternative verdicts. Somebody should not be able to escape liability by saying he thought a girl was 15 when he was accused of having sex with her on the basis that she was 14. It can easily be remedied by the DPP putting two counts against the accused in a live case.

Under the 1924 Act, where a trial is ongoing or has started, the Irish courts, and this may be relevant to proceedings on the other side of the city, are obliged to substitute an indictment where the facts disclose an offence unless they consider an injustice would be done to the accused. There is a positive duty on a presiding judge in a jury trial to substitute an indictment which measures the offence for one that does not do so if he or she believes it would not do an injustice to the accused. That has been the law on trial on indictment since 1924. It is relevant because——

See this speech in context