Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I am grateful to my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, for allowing me to make a brief contribution. The annual renewal of this section of the Offences Against the State Act should receive the full engagement of Members of this House. A truly free society would not need legislation of this type and the fact it has continued beyond its historical setting is more a matter of political expediency than public safety. We should have a more honest debate on that issue.

The Minister is unwilling to introduce the changes necessary to make clauses of this nature obsolete because it does not suit his political hard man persona. In reality, however, he is a man of straw when it comes to public confidence and safety. He needs to invent bogeymen and threats because his political existence depends on inculcating fear in society. There is undoubtedly a need for structures and systems of support for the Judiciary, the legal system and the police force, but this grants extra powers that arose in an historical context and might be deemed counterproductive in an historical analysis, even from the perspective of the legislation's very existence.

Given its limited relevance in 2007 and the need to invent pretexts and threats to justify its continued existence, a society that strives to become more free should not have on the Statute Book provisions that allow its citizens to become compromised in such situations. We should not tolerate that, and that is why we should move as quickly as possible to a genuine reconsideration of this Act and the type of legislation that would address public needs and the real threats nationally and internationally.

On those grounds, it may not be worthwhile going through the motions of opposing this, since the Government has decided that it will pass one way or another. At the very least, however, one must protest against the claim that it is necessary that the provision continue. A new Government in the next Dáil must examine it properly.

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