Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not agree to the renewal of this legislation. As my colleague said, it is an insult to democracy. I have three minutes and 15 seconds. I cannot do justice or carry out my role as a TD in examining this legislation, seeing what it is based on and deciding on the need for it. Therefore, I relied on what the Government did. It set up an independent review. I have taken the trouble of reading the majority and minority reports. Both agreed that this legislation should not be renewed and should be repealed - some of it brought back, other parts not. Where the two reports differed substantially was in relation to the majority report recommending a special criminal court on a full-time basis. I fully support and agree with that.

The minority report attempted to give an alternative view and provide a counterpoint to what they believe to be an example of becoming overhabituated to the abnormal. That is what has happened here. Successive Governments have become overhabituated to something that is quite abnormal and which is being renewed as a constitutional provision for emergency legislation. There is a need for emergency legislation but not on a permanent basis. There have been no safeguards and no monitoring. When it was recommended to bring in a permanent court, the majority report said to bring in safeguards. I note that the Minister has taken one or two of those on board with the publication of the Special Criminal Court judgment. Something as basic as that has never happened. The majority report said that they were not making recommendations and that one can pick and choose them. It is part of a package including the importance of safeguards in relation to this abnormality. I agree with the minority report. The majority report recommends a Special Criminal Court on a permanent basis, which is saying that our courts are inadequate. That is a very dangerous precedent. I do not believe the Constitution allows for that.

As I went through all of this I was struck that there was no action on the Hederman report 22 years ago, which made very practical suggestions and also recommended - while not getting rid of the legislation - repealing this legislation. There has been no action in the intervening 22 years. In the middle of that, we had the Law Reform Commission in 2013 with no action. An interdepartmental task force was set up and then removed. For years and years we have normalised a most abnormal situation with no facts, no figures, and absolutely no facts in relation to jury tampering. I am all for supporting any Government in relation to temporary legislation to deal with emergency situations but this is not what is happening here. At the risk of repeating myself again, which I do not like doing, the Government is normalising the abnormal with no grounding evidence whatsoever. Up to now there has been no publication of the judgments and no explanation for them while continuing on with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions making the decisions and so on. Both reports say that the Special Criminal Court should be used only in exceptional circumstances. Both reports use different language, albeit different language talking about the jury system as the gold point. We deviate from jury trials at our peril. When we deviate, we should do it on the basis of facts and on reason. I am out of time, and such is democracy in attempting to do my duty in analysing something as important as this.

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