Results 16,841-16,860 of 18,761 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: I presume the content is not recorded. The law in regard to content is as I have described it and requires ministerial intervention.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: Clearly it is impractical to have ministerial intervention in every request for who telephoned who. As a matter of practicality in the investigation of, say, a kidnapping, a bank robbery or whatever, that work would involve looking at a suspect and seeing who did the suspect telephone during the relevant period. It might also involve looking at the suspect's contacts. I would spend all my...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: The position is that under the 1993 Act a senior Garda officer can apply to a telecommunications company for access to its telecommunications data in pursuit of an investigation of a serious offence. Today as we speak, all of us are subject to the fact that our telephone transactions are recorded and accessible in that scenario. We do not all ask who is applying for access to our telephone...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: It is a matter of degree. Perhaps I should inform the House that on one occasion I received a visitor in my Department when my office was in the other building on St. Stephen's Green. He was a Canadian data protection commissioner. He told me it was his strong view that there should be no retention of any kind. I asked him if he did not regard that as a very strong position to take and he...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: No, just his expenses. In my view whether the period is six months or 36 months makes very little difference. I do not think that with these safeguards in particular it is a matter of great importance. I have always been unimpressed by the arguments that material deleted after a period of time increases one's dignity and rights as a human being. This notion that if, for instance, I gave a...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: If as frequently happens, somebody says they are being subjected to harassment or nuisance calls, all the Garda can establish is that one phone contacted another at a particular time and for a particular length of time. The Senator can be reassured that the content of the call is not recorded. What the Senator says on the phone is not on some recording device, unless the Minister, on foot of...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: What is meant in the Bill is there should be an obligation to keep data which is currently generally kept. This means that a phone company could not simply say it does not keep data at all. In such a situation, all the baddies in the world would use that phone company. If one of the three mobile phone companies decided not to keep any data and it was therefore never possible to establish...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: We have already debated the principle involved in this amendment.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This amendment relates to the obligation to retain data and requests by the Garda Síochána to have access to such data. It provides that the Garda Commissioner may request a service provider to retain data for the purposes of the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of crime, including but not limited to terrorist offences, or the safeguarding of the security of the State.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This amendment provides for a prohibition on access to data, except in accordance with those provisions set out in subparagraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (1). It means that telecommunications companies may not allow access to data or access data, except at the request of the person to whom the data relates, or for the purpose of complying with a disclosure request under subsection (2) or (3)...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: Amendment No. 11 inserts a safeguarding section providing for a referee and judicial oversight function.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This amendment provides that the President of the Circuit Court may invite a judge of the High Court to undertake the functions to which I referred.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This amendment gives the judge, among other things, an obligation to keep the operation of the provisions of this Part under review to ascertain whether the Garda Síochána and the Army are complying with its provisions and to include in a report to the Taoiseach, under section 8(2) of the 1993 Act, such matters relating to this Part that the judge considers appropriate.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This is a technical amendment which provides for inclusion of a reference to section 14(7).

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: The purpose of this amendment is to introduce, with regard to European arrest warrants, a presumption that an issuing state will comply with the requirements set out in the framework decision unless the contrary is shown. In other words, it will be presumed that member states of the European Union will comply with the requirements of the framework decision unless somebody shows the contrary.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: No, it is a different issue. We have moved on to European arrest warrants. At present, if a person is contesting a European arrest warrant, the question which arises is how does one know that France, for example, will comply with its obligations under the law. This new section will provide for the assumption that the issuing state will comply with its obligations unless it is shown otherwise....

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: This amendment provides that offences under European arrest warrants are assumed to correspond to an offence under the law of the state where the act or omission which constitutes the offence would, if committed in the state on the date on which the European arrest warrant is issued, constitute an offence under the law of the state.

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: The amendment amends section 63 by the insertion of a new paragraph (b) after paragraph (a). Its purpose is to substitute a new subsection in section 14 of the Act of 2003. It is a technical amendment which follows from an amendment to section 12 of the European Arrest Warrant Act, which was inserted in the Dáil and clarified the status of warrants received by fax. The amendment to section...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: The revised section 21 provided for by the amendment allows the arrested person to raise a question about the intention of the issuing state and, in this case, to raise a question about the issuing state's intention to proceed with a prosecution. However, amendment No. 18 adds a presumption that there has been compliance by the issuing state with the terms of the framework decision unless the...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill 2002: Committee Stage. (3 Feb 2005)

Michael McDowell: There must be an intention to prosecute rather than a general desire to engage in a fishing expedition. Having included these protections, we wanted to make clear that it is not sufficient for a person to ask questions in court and list a series of matters which must be proved. The warrant system would collapse if one had to effectively move the judicial officers to Ireland with a view to...