Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

We have to be realistic and look to the rest of this section to determine to nature of the obligation being cast on the carrier by section 2(1). It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that he or she took all such steps as were reasonably open to him or her to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Act. It is a reasonableness test. In order to decide whether he or she is carrying undocumented people a carrier must make a reasonable stab at deciding who are the Irish nationals and who are not. The best way to do that is to ask them to produce documents and Irish people will, in all probability, prove they are Irish nationals by producing Irish identity documents of one form or another. In those circumstances if all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure they were Irish citizens the carrier has complied with his or her obligation under the Act.