Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I understand the Minister of State's reply. It is difficult to define an exceptional case in statute law. However, when the legislation was initially put through this House and the other House, a former Minister, Mervyn Taylor, referred to the fact that the granting of such orders was confined to extreme cases. He did not define what he meant by "extreme cases"; he left it to the application of the courts. The Supreme Court ruling on this matter seems to rap us across the knuckles for our failure to establish what we believe to be exceptional cases. We are not attempting to slow down the progress of this important Bill, but we must return to this issue. It is not always the case that the courts want to be the sole arbitrators in such matters. They want a set of circumstances under which they can determine, based on the evidence, what is in the interests of natural justice. This is one of the cases where our knuckles were rapped. We will not be able to devise new criteria between now and 6 p.m., given that we have failed to do so since the Supreme Court ruling.