Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

I support Deputy Howlin to a certain extent. We need to consider what will happen in court if the officer who was responsible for issuing the certificate in the first place is not capable of indicating to the court the conclusions he reached on foot of the investigation he pursued up to that point. It seems that it has been decided to deal with the issue rather than to act in a justifiable manner. If the court learns that the certificate was not issued in time, it might consider that the issuing officer did not have time to conduct a proper investigation, or that the officer found something wrong with the application, and therefore decide that the application should be refused.

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