Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I remind the Minister of State that the Government scheduled this debate. The Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, was not in Valletta yesterday. She was having another press conference on the same-sex referendum. If the Minister's problem was that she had to attend the Valletta summit, we could have discussed this Bill yesterday. That is a very important point.

The Minister of State did not respond to what I said about the Attorney General's opinion, which I would like to see given that it is the Government's official justification for watering down this Bill. The essence of what is proposed in this Bill, as it will stand if our amendments are not adopted, is a continuance of Government control over policing. The effect of allowing for the possibility that State security considerations will be used to block the new Garda authority will be to deny the authority the right to oversee events.

I do not agree with the Minister of State's ludicrous suggestion that our proposal to include the words "reasonable suspicion" would prevent gardaí or anybody else from being proactive regarding these matters. One would imagine that if gardaí are investigating people for issues, they would have reasonable suspicion and would not be merely fishing or surfing for information on spec. As far as I am concerned, the importance of privacy and civil rights means they should not be proactive unless it is based on reasonable suspicion. The key point we are making about the word "unlawful" is that under our Constitution, something is deemed to be unlawful or otherwise if the courts deem it to be so. The way this legislation has been framed by the Minister is that it will give the Minister the power to interpret whether something is lawful. This is outside the Minister's constitutional provision and is outside the way our Constitution works with regard to the separation of powers between the Oireachtas, the Government and the courts. We are trying to limit some of the restrictions being proposed by the Government. The aim of our eminently reasonable amendments is to deliver greater accountability. It is unfortunate that the Minister of State has not responded to many of the points we have put forward.

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