Results 4,841-4,860 of 18,728 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes. We are on Report Stage and are reverting to Committee Stage for these amendments.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy's amendment refers to the person in respect of whom bail is being varied or an application for bail is being made being given adequate time before the proceedings in the court are dealt with. In the District Court if somebody needs extra time, he or she will get it. If the prosecution tried to proceed prematurely there would be an adjournment. It is not necessary to tell the...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Yes.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: With regard to amendment No. 43, the court will always give a person brought before it adequate time to meet the case against him or her. It is not necessary to provide for that in a statute. If we started to do that, it would have to be included with regard to every offence and procedure in a court.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: On Committee Stage we discussed the question of cost effectiveness. Deputy Howlin was particularly interested in this. The Department has been examining this issue and has looked at evidence from, among other places, the United Kingdom, where a report by its Comptroller and Auditor General showed that the numbers on curfew had risen from 9,000 in 1999 to over 50,000 in 2004-05. It showed...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Curfew monitoring.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I have no information on that point.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: It is almost impossible to be absolutely scientific about how long these processes take. From dealing with a number of projects which required procurement, my view is that it would be optimistic, from the time of a decision to definitely go ahead with it and to put out a tender specification, to say that one would have a result and implementation within a year of that date.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: A year has not passed since we passed the last Act so I do not, therefore, agree with that proposition. Since the Deputies are spending some of their time here looking at electoral tea leaves, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe might be better employed asking Deputy Howlin whether he wants this at all if he anticipates being in a position to influence the decision himself.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: This is an interesting proposal which would effectively codify as a canon of interpretation the law which is common law to some extent and judge-based law in respect of when exceptions must be proved or disproved. Subsection (2) proposes to set out the exact criteria which a court should have regard to in deciding to apply rules of construction. It also proposes to deal with submissions of...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I did not suggest that. Since we have limited time, I appealed to them not to bring in material that we have not had an opportunity to consider and which the public has never considered.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I did not say it was inappropriate, I said it was perfectly permissible under the rules of the House, but we have limited time——

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: ——and the Deputy said that there are many important things in the Bill which he wanted to discuss. I could go on for two hours on this if he wants. The problem is that the public has never had an opportunity to consider this proposition.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: This section more or less describes what actually happens at the moment.

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Therefore, it is not particularly necessary. When someone is convicted in the District Court, it is usual for the judge, when telling the solicitor that his client is being convicted, to ask if he is employed, whether he has a family and whether he has any previous convictions. He accepts the solicitor's word on this and the Garda is there to contradict the solicitor if he is not correct on...

Leaders' Questions (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy should turn off the moral outrage, it does not suit him. He comes in here and asks me from memory whether I read individual letters a number of years after the event. I cannot give him a truthful answer on that because the volume of correspondence in my Department is such that if I did answer that question one way or the other, the file could show that I did see it or that I did...

Leaders' Questions (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I did not say that.

Leaders' Questions (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I did not say that. I am careful with what I say unlike Deputy Stagg.

Leaders' Questions (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: It is not rhetoric and bombast to point out that when the Deputies opposite were in office they did have a Department called the Department of Equality and Law Reform.

Leaders' Questions (4 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Unfortunately it is true that its record regarding the disabled children of Ireland was pitiful and shameful and no significant resources were put into that area at all.