Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, have concerns about this legislation, including the fact that is it being passed so quickly when we might have issues with the situation of the high-risk vendor or whatever wording the Government wants to use. Deputy McNamara has been a practitioner in the courts and knows more about them than I do. I would not be as loud in my praise for the Judiciary as he is. That is his entitlement. The Minister of State said that we will have recourse to the courts. Justice delayed is justice denied. There are queues out the door in the courts, as the Minister of State is aware. There are huge backlogs and delays in getting cases heard. I do not know if this is going to work. Where is the transparency? Deputy McNamara said that the Special Criminal Court sits behind closed doors. There is a behind-closed-doors element of this legislation because we, as legislators, are voting for a pig in a poke. We do not know exactly what the process will be other than there will be recourse to the courts. There is talk of this European tool box. It must be a mighty tool box. Like other colleagues, in the last few months in particular, I have heard regularly that we have a full tool box at our disposal to use whatever tools in it that we think desirable for reliefs for our hard-pressed people, but we have not used them or even opened the box. Now, apparently we have the padlock unlocked and it is wide open. The tool box is there to be used and explored and taken advantage of. It may be that there are very well-to-do companies that can afford to go to court. The cost for most companies of going down the road of judicial appeals and reviews is prohibitive. It is very vague to say that there will be recourse to the courts. What courts will they be? Will they be appeal courts or high courts? Will cases end up in the Supreme Court or the European Court of Justice if we are dealing with European companies? Why have something so loose and vague? It is very important that we get this right. As Teachtaí Dála we have to know what we are voting for here.

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