Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I welcome some of these amendments, especially those removing an upper age limit. I published a Bill to give effect to this change. The extent of this has been taken on board.

That said, I am not entirely happy with the wording relating to "incapable" persons. I know of many business people who have survived and thrived in business despite not being capable, at this stage, of reading. They would be excluded from serving on a jury. In this day and age, to have a prohibition on deaf people serving on a jury is regrettable.

If we look at other jurisdictions, the United States has removed the restrictions on deaf and blind people serving on juries — all US courts now allow deaf and blind people to serve on juries. Clearly, there would be practical issues to overcome but by doing so — having an interpreter or a signer for people — we would ensure that a deaf or blind citizen is allowed to play their full role as a citizen. Deafness or blindness is not a sufficient reason to prevent persons from serving on a jury.

I do not know if a recent court case taken by Ms Joan Clarke and FLAC is concluded. It reinforced the position I am taking. I advocate that we amend this amendment to allow people who are deaf and blind serve. I welcome that the upper age limit has been removed as it was high time this was done. That part of the language is progressive but we are falling behind in the latter part of amendment No. 22 in particular.

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