Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I do not support these motions. The legislation to which they relate sets out to tell us that the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice. I did not hear that declaration anywhere in the detailed speech the Minister made and I do not see any evidence at all for it.

The Special Criminal Court is based on emergency legislation. We have been told repeatedly that that is unacceptable. We were criticised on foot of it by the UN Human Rights Committee in 1993, 2000, 2008, 2013 and 2014. We had the Hederman report and then, in 2023, the majority and minority reports of the review group.

We have a Minister for justice, who has serious experience in law behind him, telling us we will be standing here again next year, if we are alive, to again pass a resolution saying the courts are inadequate without any evidence or any action on all of that criticism and without even an apology two years after the issuing of a minority and a majority report. That is unacceptable.

It is also unacceptable that human rights and the balancing that must take place are mentioned absolutely nowhere. It is clear that we need to deal with terrorism and serious crime but there must be a balancing exercise. Of course, you will get a hint from the UN special rapporteur. Until last year, that was Professor Ní Aoláin from Galway, while the current rapporteur is Ben Saul. The rapporteur's full title is interesting. The Minister of State might look at it. It is the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. There is a framework there. Yes, there is counter-terrorism, but with a framework.

In the minute and a half I have left, I will ask a number of questions. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties kindly sent us information. When we go ahead and get rid of the Special Criminal Court, will it be done by ordinary legislation or by referendum? If it is to be done by ordinary legislation, how can that be done when we had to have a referendum to establish the Court of Appeal? With regard to placing the Special Criminal Court on a permanent footing, how can that be reconciled with the Constitution, under which the Special Criminal Court arises from emergency powers? The issue of the DPP making the decision rather than a judge is not addressed anywhere. There is then the use of belief or opinion evidence. This has gone in Northern Ireland but we are going to keep it down here. That has not been looked at or teased out as regards equality between Northern Ireland and here. We were promised a period of consultation with stakeholders following the Peart review in 2023. There is no mention of the status of that consultation. I have mentioned that human rights are not mentioned at all.

Of course, the right to a jury is the gold standard. It is unacceptable for a Minister for justice with such experience not to reference that gold standard or tell us why we have to depart from it when a substantial number of the sections of the legislation have not been used at all. It is unacceptable. We will be looking at terrorism legislation again on Thursday without any context when the real terrorists, Israel and so on, which I will be mentioning when I am speaking on Thursday, are not mentioned. There is huge danger in going down a very narrow road regarding security and who the terrorists are without an overall scope.

See this speech in context