Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

My party will support this motion. I wish to pay tribute to the Garda for its work in this area during the past 12 months. Anybody who read about the case in Galway last Monday, to which the Minister referred, will look at the detail and the work that had to go into the prosecution of that case on the part of gardaí. Although some of the provisions of the Act overall enabled the prosecution it was also the man, or person, hours that went into it which contributed.

The one difficulty or challenge we have in this regard is that we need to ensure that EU legislation in this general area is as robust as our own internal legislation. The Minister committed previously to making this one of the key points of his agenda for the Presidency next year. Perhaps in his wrapping up he might give the House an idea of where we stand on that.

We are dealing with people who have no regard for this House, the citizens of this country or the rights of anybody. People who perform their duty and give jury service are doing the State a service and to think that because they do that they may be subject to threats by people who wish to avoid justice is fundamentally wrong. We need to ensure they have protection and that those who are selected for jury duty in a case such as this will have that protection. That is why we support the renewal of these measures.

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