Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The point I want to put to the Minister is that nothing will change in the matter of the protection of witnesses as a result of the Bill. Is that not the case? There is no point in us confusing that with the intimidation of jurors. The Irish Human Rights Commission made a submission to the Minister and it stated that in the absence of supporting data it queried a blanket assumption about the actual or potential level of jury intimidation in Ireland. Dr. Carol Coulter, who covers this on a daily basis for The Irish Times, wrote:

...the Bill has not been accompanied by any evidence of a failure on the part of the courts or any reluctance on the part of jurors to face up to their responsibilities. Indeed, the principal judge in the Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Paul Carney, is on the record as stating that when gang members are brought before his jury court there is no difficulty convicting.

Why are juries not delivering perverse acquittals if there is intimidation of juries? Do we know of any single jury trial that collapsed in this country because jurors were got at? Somewhere along the line, when the record of this debate is being examined by jurists, jurors, archivists, historians or whatever, the thread of truth must be present. We can all agree with the Minister about the phenomenon that is out there and that the atmosphere is being poisoned in certain limited geographical areas.

I am sorry I do not have with me the figures for jurors in the normal course of events not only with regard to not serving but with regard to not turning up. A huge proportion of jurors in the day to day business of the courts do not even turn up. Many Members have a difficult time writing letters about guys who come to them in Saturday clinics stating they are deaf or that they have imperfect hearing. People have been trying to get off jury service for as long as I have been around. However, it is a different issue in certain parts of urban Ireland where people are intimidated and there is a difference between empanelling a jury and a jury actually discharging its responsibility.

I am asking whether the Minister has the evidence of intimidation. All we are asking for is the evidence. I ask the Minister to give the House the evidence of where there is a record or even one case of a perverse acquittal. I know of no such case. I have taken time out with the people I mentioned on Second Stage debate to get information on that. I waited with some interest for the letter promised by the Minister to Deputy Charles Flanagan. I read that letter, but there is no evidence in it of juries being intimidated. We can hold a different view on this for the duration of this Bill.

However, taking the Bill as it stands, there is nothing in it that alters the position or provides more protection to witnesses next week than they had last week. This is very important. I feel from talking to colleagues casually in the corridors that some of them would like to be able to go home and say in their home communities that everything was great now because we had dealt with this gangland legislation and that witnesses would not have to appear any more. However, those of us who follow this closely know that is not true.

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