Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In regard to today's business, as a longstanding Member of this House I want to raise a point of serious concern. Later today, we are to debate a criminal justice Bill which gives new powers of enforcement to An Garda Síochána and penalties for breaches of acts which are now to be criminal acts. This is a Bill that creates penalties for crimes that are not set out in it. It is a very unusual piece of legislation. In other words, it provides for penalties and enforcement procedures for crimes that are not set out.

When we were briefed on this Bill late on Friday evening I asked the Department of Justice officials when we would know the issues to be criminalised and they said that they did not know.

The crimes to be penally sanctioned are set out now in regulations published yesterday by the Minister for Health. The regulations published yesterday were a compendium, basically a recitation, of all of the regulations, some of which are penal and some of which are merely advisory and carry no penalty. The difficulty for the House is that insofar as this legislation relates to pubs and restaurants, relevant provisions, as far as I can determine from the regulations published yesterday, relate only to the keeping of records. In other words, in terms of what is being penalised, it will be a requirement under penal sanction to keep records of visitors to pubs and what they order.

We do not know what else will be encompassed by the regulations. When we take the Bill, the Minister for Justice, who is taking it, will not be in a position to answer our questions, no more than her officials were able to answer our questions, because she is not the Minister making the regulations. I seek the Ceann Comhairle's guidance as to how we can pass legislation that creates criminal offences that we do not know, and which can be renewed or changed tomorrow by new regulations.

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