Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is heartening to see that in one of the reports that was laid before the House that the Minister accepts that some of these emergency provisions are a departure from normal practice. Many of the human rights leaders to whom we spoke recently accept that emergency provisions which are outside the norm tend to persist the longer they exist and if they are not used, they should cease. The annual renewal is not satisfactory, but rather than putting more appropriate legal architecture in place, successive Governments have sometimes used the renewal as a political football. It is 20 years since a review under the late, great Mr. Justice Hederman, and a review is welcome now.

The second issue is the lack of oversight. There is no doubt that there are cases going to the Special Criminal Court at the moment that should not go there. It is simply not right that, as was said recently, a civil servant should have the power to refer cases to the court without reason, challenge or explanation. We called for a review last year, as we believe the legislation is outdated and belongs to another era. The review group has been appointed and it has some excellent members. We will await its report. We will deliver our own submission and we hope voting on this motion will soon be redundant. In the meantime, we await the outcome of the review group and we will keep the matter under review.

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