James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. I acknowledge the Committee on Justice for providing a pre-legislative scrutiny waiver in respect of this matter due to its urgency. I take Deputy Martin Kenny's point that where a committee waives pre-legislative scrutiny, perhaps a technical briefing could be provided to spokespersons. I will bring that point back to the Department and the Minister, Deputy McEntee. Currently, court presenters in Dublin are generally sergeants and, outside of Dublin, are generally at a rank higher than sergeant, often at inspector level. The relevant court presenters are given very specific training as well. I am not aware of any situation in which someone below the rank of sergeant has acted as a court presenter.

The Department is not minded to accept Sinn Féin's proposed amendment. I acknowledge its worthiness but, given this is emergency legislation, we simply do not have the time to ensure there are no unintended consequences, no matter how obvious the circumstances may be.

The primary objective of the emergency legislation is to restore the system of court presenters that existed prior to the High Court judgment. There has been insufficient time to ensure there would be no unintended consequences by adopting any alternative approach at this stage.

As the House will be aware, in April 2021 the general scheme of the policing, security and community safety Bill was approved by the Government and published. The scheme provides that the Bill, when enacted, will repeal the Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended, in its entirety. Head 9 of the scheme provides for the prosecution of offences by An Garda Síochána. It is necessary to restate the existing law as set out in section 8 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, pending the report of the high-level review group on the role of An Garda Síochána in the public prosecution system and its consideration by the Government. The review group is due to submit its final report within a matter of weeks. Consideration of the group's recommendation is linked to the final report of the review group and its consideration by the Government in due course. Nothing in this Bill should pre-empt the work of the group, and that has informed the approach to the emergency legislation for consideration today.

While I fully recognise the emergency legislation, as proposed, is significant, I believe this Bill represents a necessary, proportionate and carefully balanced response to the current situation and would allow the District Court to function as intended. Further, the legislation comes in response to an emergency, whereby failure to act would deny access to the District Court for accused persons and victims, incur greater costs on the State and prolong the period of uncertainty for all involved. Consideration is being given to appealing the judgment. I commend the Bill to the House and look forward to hearing from Deputies on the matter on subsequent Stages.

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