Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The District Court deals with the vast majority of warrants and I intend to put this issue before its court rules committee. Unless there is some issue we have not considered, my preference is that a warrant should include on its face a clear indication of the time by which it is effectively dead. This means that somebody who is in charge of premises or in a home in respect of which a warrant is produced can immediately see whether it is already invalid or for how much longer it will remain valid. The applicable time limit will be clear.

The person who receives a warrant should know exactly what it means. At present, however, there is a rather legal and mathematical process where it is up for discussion whether the seven days for which a warrant is to remain open began at midnight on the day on which it was issued and expired at midnight six or seven days later or otherwise, depending on one's mathematics. It would be better if a warrant clearly stated the time and date of its expiration. Everybody would then have a clear view on when it was or was not in force.

The Deputy is aware of several recent cases where gardaí presented with warrants in their hands in the belief they were still in force. If one goes back to the Interpretation Act, however, one discovers they were erroneous in their legal interpretation of the documents they were holding. The easiest way around this is to state on the face of the warrant the time when it expires or is dead. Rather than do this through legislation, I would prefer if the courts, in particular the District Court, would consider the question of putting into its rules that the time at which the warrant expires should be clearly stated, in a box marked expiry time, so that everybody knows when a warrant is alive or dead.

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