Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

——nor have they any role in these matters, which are clearly reserved for the courts under the Constitution.

This Bill provides that a Minister will only have a limited legislative power to make provision for indictable offences in regulations made under the 1972 Act. This will only be done when a Minister fully considers that it is necessary to do so in order to live up to our EU treaty obligations. This Bill makes it plain that the penalties must be proportionate. In other words, serious penalties will only be provided for in cases of serious breaches of EU law.

Where it is necessary to provide for prosecution on indictment, the Minister must operate within the parameters set down in section 2. This provides for a maximum fine of €500,000 and a maximum term of imprisonment of three years on conviction in the Circuit Court, a higher court. Such penalties would only be imposed by a court after a fair trial and not by the Minister or his or her officials, nor the European Commission, nor anyone else for that matter, whether they be in Opposition or Government.

Our EU membership means that we are bound by our treaty obligations. These require us to have effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, for serious breaches of European Community law. This is what this legislation seeks to achieve. The Government is not seeking to persecute farmers, fishermen, pharmacists or anyone else, as Deputy Denis Naughten implied in his speech and later in his outrageous and false press releases. Law-abiding people have nothing to fear from any law, whether that it be domestic or EU law.

See this speech in context