Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, line 22, after "Ireland" to insert "or who is ordinarily resident in the State".

We had a more comprehensive discussion of this on Second Stage than on Committee Stage but the matter arises from our Committee Stage deliberations. This is a belt and braces approach and we seek to ensure there are no opportunities for people to evade the sincere objectives of this Bill, which has been a long time in gestation. Now that it is here it behoves us as parliamentarians to ensure we get the best Bill possible. On page 4, line 22, after "Ireland" I want to insert "or who is ordinarily resident in the State". The Minister of State pointed to the problem in this regard but in our view it is discriminatory to exempt non-citizens from regulations if Irish citizens are to be covered by such regulations. On Committee Stage he said there is no definition of "resident" so we have adapted the amendment to cover ordinary residents, a well known legal term that goes back to the Electoral Act 1992. The legislation defines this term "ordinary resident" which has been relied upon in this area for many years.

On Second Stage, Labour Party Deputies noted the importance of controlling activity related to the production and sale of military equipment. Section 3(2)(b) refers to activities undertaken outside the State by individuals who are Irish citizens or companies registered in the State. The focus of our previous discussion was to determine what provision was being made to cover circumstances in which a person engaged in brokering activities outside the State was resident in but not a citizen of Ireland. We tried to address this lacuna by way of a Committee Stage amendment but the Minister of State indicated our amendment was loosely worded or insufficiently focused. The amendment has been reworded to try to achieve our objective of ensuring that the monitoring system is all-encompassing in so far as this is possible. I accept the terms "residency", "domicile" and "citizenship" have different meanings and may create difficulty in this regard. We indicated we would seek to amend section 3(2)(b) to clarify the term "citizenship" in light of the difference in the meaning of these terms.

While the nuances of my argument may appear somewhat whimsical or Jesuitical to many people outside the House, they have significant meaning for legislators. We want to ensure the legislation is both effective and amenable to rigorous implementation by providing that the section has maximum coverage.

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