Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

I am knocked down by all the support I am getting in principle for the propositions I am suggesting. However, I am not having much success in securing the changes in the law which I feel are necessary. We need to go back to first principles when considering these issues. The first point is that we constitute the Legislature. I respect the independence of the courts, but my first job is to legislate. I would like to set out the background to this discussion. We are really talking about whether evidence against an accused person to which technical objections can be raised should be excluded in all circumstances, thereby leading to the acquittal of that person on technical grounds. It is no harm to recollect what happened in the Kenny case, which is the leading case in this regard. The accused person was charged with the possession of drugs which were found on foot of a search of his home. Given that when they searched his home they found the drugs, of which he was in possession, one would imagine it to be an open and shut case. The accused person had some shrewd lawyers who argued the warrant was bad because insufficient information was placed before the peace commissioner who issued it, as was then the practice, to enable him to be satisfied there were reasonable grounds for granting it. How in the name of goodness does that affect the issue of whether the man was in possession of drugs?

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