Results 10,241-10,260 of 16,849 for speaker:Dermot Ahern

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The effect of this amendment would be to remove the circumstances under which the State would establish extra territorial jurisdiction over the offence under section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1997, namely, the offence of impeding the apprehension or prosecution of another person who has committed an arrestable offence. Besides the inconsistency created by the amendment whereby it only...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: Before I respond to Senator Regan's amendment I would like to make a number of general remarks on Part 4 of the Bill. It is necessary to clarify some basic issues which will assist in dealing with the amendments. Part 4 is devoted almost exclusively to the detention of suspects under various statutory detention orders in the Offences Against the State Act, the Criminal Justice (Drug...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The amendments seek to make it mandatory that all new procedures in the Bill relating to applications to extend the detention period must be heard in the Circuit Court. I am not sure if the Senator appreciates that his amendments would have the effect of splitting jurisdiction in individual cases. The District Court would handle the hearing of the application for the extension of time but...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I will make a few comments on the section in general. Attention has been focused on one of its aspects where the provision is to hear information from a garda in the absence of an arrested person and his or her legal representative. It has been alleged that these would be secret hearings and are likely to be unconstitutional, but it is fair to say that this provision is necessary to protect...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: To answer Senator Bacik on section 30, the initial period is 24 hours, the first extension authorised by a chief superintendent is a further 24 hours and the first extension authorised by a district court or circuit court is 24 hours. Normally the district court follows an application by a superintendent, making a total of 72 hours or three days. The total under section 2 of the Criminal...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I wish to reply to the accusation that there is a creeping move towards longer periods of detention. It had been suggested that in the context of the legislation we should consider longer periods of detention but I resisted those calls because I believe seven days is sufficient. When one considers the figures it is quite clear that under the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act that for...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I am sorry. I understood the Senator to say it was used more frequently. Since 2007, a total of 19 individuals have been detained for questioning by the Garda under section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 2007. A total of four persons have been detained for up to 48 hours. A total of 13 persons have been detained for up to five days. A total of two persons have been detained for up to...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The purpose of explicitly stating in statute that no issue as to the lawfulness of the arrest or detention of a person to whom an extension of time application relates may be raised, is to counter a growing tendency in recent years on the part of the suspect to try to turn the hearing into a hearing on the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention. This has a number of undesirable...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I cannot put it any further than the advice of the Attorney General that the overriding principle in the Keating case is the one that applies concerning detention hearings, that is, that the District Court has no jurisdiction and that under Article 40 of the Constitution it is purely and simply a matter for the High Court.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: No.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The four amendments proposed to sections 21 and 24 of the Bill appear to be aimed at requiring applications for warrants for re-arrest to be heard by a Circuit Court judge rather than a District Court judge, as has been the law for almost 25 years. No one has ever drawn to my attention any difficulty in having these applications heard by the District Court. I repeat the point I made earlier...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: In effect, the Senator is objecting to an amendment that was passed in the Lower House. Paragraph (a) amends section 2(2)(b) of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996, which specifies the rank of garda who may authorise the first extension of detention following the expiry of the period authorised at the time of arrest. In the case of the 1996 Act, a period of six hours is...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I am aware, from experience, that applications for search warrants should be heard in private. When the Garda authorities apply for such warrants, there is a substantial risk that the intended subject might be alerted to the planned search and might avail of the timelag in order to dispose of evidence. Some District Court judges have recently been refusing to hear applications for search...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The Deputy has a point. However, we are endeavouring in this legislation to clarify any confusion that exists in respect of search warrant applications in general. Regardless of whether it pertains to organised gang crime or normal crime, if there is any indication, it is important that these are made in effect ex parte and in private to prevent information from leaking out and in order that...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I thank you, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, and the Cathaoirleach for facilitating this debate. I thank the Senators who contributed. This was an excellent debate where we teased out many of the issues and everyone understood each other. The level of debate was higher than some of the debate I heard elsewhere, in that people fully understood what the legislation involved. It is clear that the...

Seanad: Health Services (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I thank the Senator for raising this issue. Much of the concern expressed about waiting times for access to addiction services in the Cork area in recent times has been in respect of the waiting times for opiate users to access methadone treatment. Currently, 106 opiate users in the Cork area are awaiting this service, a decrease of almost one third on the 150 opiate users who were on the...

Seanad: Private Rented Accommodation (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I thank the Senator for raising this item and for the opportunity to outline the progress that has been made in recent years in tackling the issue of substandard accommodation in the rental sector. New regulations were signed at the end of last year updating the minimum standards for rented housing. These regulations are part of a package of measures delivering on a commitment in the...

Seanad: Rural Environment Protection Scheme (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I thank the Senators for raising this matter. As they have said, the rural environment protection scheme has undoubtedly been a successful measure. By the end of 2009, payments made to farmers since the launch of the scheme in 1994 will have passed the €3 billion mark. REPS has always been about much more than money. It has delivered enormous benefits in enhancing the rural environment,...

Seanad: Rural Environment Protection Scheme (14 Jul 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I can assure the Senator that the Government will do its level best to ensure that we access all the EU funding that is available and that we will provide the necessary funding in this respect. In regard to the new scheme, its details have not yet been indicated and they will be available later this year. There is no easy way around the fact that our public finances are in a difficult...

Suspension of Member (16 Sep 2009)

Dermot Ahern: Not so distinguished.