Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will say again that there was absolutely no attempt to mislead anybody in the Dáil. When I say this is something which happens regularly, it should be noted that we asked that pre-legislative scrutiny be waived for the previous two Bills I brought forward because of the prevailing circumstances. I appreciate that Deputies allowed us to do so and I thank them for that. Additions were made to both Bills, all of which were necessary at the time. A process was undertaken in putting this legislation together. A medium-term planning group was established by my Department to identify medium-term measures to address the impact of the pandemic on the justice system and on the courts in particular. The group comprised various stakeholders, including the Legal Aid Board, the Insolvency Service of Ireland, the Courts Service, members of the Judiciary and my officials. Part of the group's work was to identify and review measures for inclusion in the Bill. We also engaged with the Law Society in this regard. As the Deputy will know and as I outlined at the time, this particular reform measure has been sought for some time. It is already in place in respect of criminal trials. Our nearest neighbour, which is a similar common law jurisdiction, also has such a measure in place. This was very well understood and had been sought for some time. There was no specific reason for not including it in the earlier process. It was just included at a later date.

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