Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)

This goes back to one reason for tabling the first amendment, which was to include the tests of imminence, necessity and proportionality the Minister has decided not to include. However, were the Bill to pass as it stands, my reading of it is that in effect, Members will have placed the same level of importance on the life of a person as on private property. If this is the case, it completely contravenes Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Minister stated on Committee Stage that he received guidance from the Attorney General to the effect that this Bill is in line with Article 2 of the aforementioned convention. However, Article 2 states that the State is obliged to take appropriate measures to safeguard human life. This places a positive obligation on the State to provide a legal regime that effectively protects the lives of all persons present on the territory of Ireland. Moreover, the State must prohibit unlawful killing and punish it by criminal sanctions. Again, on Committee Stage, speakers referred to the stress placed by the Law Reform Commission on the importance of maintaining a proportionality component on the right to use force in the defence of a home, as well as reasonable limits in respect of that right. Sinn Féin agrees completely with this analysis but I believe this Bill to be flawed, in that it does not comply with Article 2. The Minister should reconsider this point because while I do not suggest one cannot use lethal force, I make the point that one cannot place the same level of importance on someone's life as one does on bricks and mortar. Any democracy that does that is on a slippery slope.

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