Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputies have outlined, the purpose of amendments Nos. 6 and 7 is to require that the reasons given by a court for granting or refusing bail and for imposing any bail conditions under section 6 be in writing. I can understand the Deputies' reasons for wanting to include such a requirement. The purpose of section 6 of the Bill is to improve the information provided by the court in bail hearings. However, the effect of amendment No. 7 would have been to require that a written decision be given in respect of all bail hearings and I heard what Deputy Jonathan O'Brien had to say about that. Amendment No. 6 is more limited in scope as it would only require the decision to be given in writing, on request.

However, even with the more limited amendment, there are practical implications as Deputy O'Callaghan has outlined. The fact remains that written decisions are not the norm in the District Court and the volume of work involved in implementing the Deputy's proposal could be considerable. It would have cost implications and would inevitably entail delays in the processing of cases before the court. That is an issue at present and this would make it even more likely.

As has already been mentioned, all District Court proceedings are recorded on the digital audio recording system so in circumstances where clarification of the reasons given is required, or is in dispute, the record of proceedings will be there. For these reasons, I cannot accept the amendment.

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