Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 5, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following subsection:

"(3) An order under subsection (2) in respect of section 11 may not be made until the Minister is satisfied as to the technical accuracy of the technology required to operate that section.".

I preface my remarks, as invited by the Ceann Comhairle, by stating this is an unreasonable way of dealing with legislation. I checked until 7.30 p.m. last night but a consolidated list of amendments was not available. Through the hard work of the Bills Office, it was available in electronic format at that point but the printed version was not available until this morning. I am working from the electronic version I received last night. This is unsatisfactory. The inadequate consideration of the Bill is illustrated by the comments made by the Minister on the Order of Business. He stated he was willing to accept amendments submitted in writing by external lawyers and that he was willing to amend the Bill on foot of representations he received. Members have not seen them and I do not know what points external bodies will make. Sections of the Bill will not be reached in the debate in this House and important parts will be backloaded into the Bill. I have enjoyed the Minister accepting amendments and debating issues as he normally does. The structure of this debate does not lend itself to such a procedure because we are not at the Select Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights and do not have time. Whole sections of the Bill will not be debated. That we will have a debate on Report Stage on which the confines of the debate will be much narrower is no excuse.

The amendment seeks to insert in section 1 a subsection relating to the electronic tagging of individuals afforded bail. We will deal with that issue in some detail when we come to section 11. I raised this matter on Second Stage. The Minister outlined the two forms of electronic tagging — a fixed location tagging system, whereby an individual is monitored in respect of his or her proximity to a particular point, used in respect of a curfew for example, and the global monitoring system which is better in monitoring the location of an individual. The latter does not work effectively, as the Minister has stated. During the debate on the Criminal Justice Act 2006 the Minister indicated that there were difficulties in respect of a tagged individual's proximity to tall buildings, high trees, low cloud and in certain climatic conditions. I asked if there had been remarkable changes in the technology since we last debated the matter in May. I did not receive a direct reply but do not believe there has been. If electronic tagging is not to be seen as a token gesture, there must be satisfaction that the technology works in advance of bringing the section into operation. If the view is that the section is not operational, the courts will not rely on it and this will be another example of legislation that sounds good but has no effect. The import of my amendment is that we can be confident the technology works and the courts can be satisfied that, if they resort to electronic tagging, it will work. They will not have resort to it if they believe it will not work. Even if the Minister is well disposed towards using the technology, affirmation would be helpful in that regard.

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