Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The difficulty from the point of view of the Garda is that under the existing section gardaí are required, in effect, to prove a negative, which is causing extreme difficulty for them. The current text of section 33 requires the court to be satisfied that the person is not in the State. We want to amend this to allow the court to issue a European arrest warrant once it is satisfied that a domestic warrant is in existence and a member of the Garda Síochána believes the person may not be in the State.

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