Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It was accepted in the Special Criminal Court. I accept the point about sexual crime victims being re-traumatised by a very scary process in which they must physically confront their assailants. I take the wider point on gangland activity where people may find the process of identification frightening. It would be frightening if one saw somebody shoot down someone in front of one and was then asked to pick out that person in a face to face confrontation. I am with the Deputy 100% and propose to examine the amendment.

I agree with the Leahy report that it is probably unnecessary to change the law to do this but it certainly is necessary to have an adequate way to do it. In some North American cities and places in the United Kingdom quite elaborate rooms are set aside where this can happen. As one can imagine, it would cost a lot of money to dedicate a room to this purpose regionally. I want to examine the practicalities of what is suggested. It should be possible to use a mobile booth which could be brought to a place where a crime was committed. Not only victims of sexual crime but others are afraid of the physical confrontation method used. I accept the principle of the Deputy's proposal but I do not want to commit myself to the exact wording proposed by the Deputy.

The old traditional thinking must have been based to some extent on how evidence of identification by somebody not in the room with the accused would be given without breaching the hearsay rule. I do not know whether it is relevant to the hearsay rule if an accused person is told by somebody else that a person outside the room identified him or her. Whether it is relevant or had anything to do with the old-fashioned way of confronting the accused and letting him or her know he or she had been selected, we should modernise the system in practice, whatever about the theory of it.

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