Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The perjury Bill has not yet been published, despite it being promised on a number of occasions by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Everyone is outraged by what happened in the Central Criminal Court yesterday. The protections in the system for innocent people from unfair convictions may have been abused in this case. How we move on this matter is important, but we need to do so slowly. We need to hear from the Minister as to what his plans are for dealing with this matter. I suggest we introduce legislation that allows statements to be entered into evidence once they have been made. People who have made those statements should then be allowed afterwards to claim they were made through coercion or to change them. Another method would be for all such statements to be sworn in the first place and entered as evidence. We must bring forward legislation so a jury and a court can be allowed to reach certain conclusions on the basis of a person claiming not to remember what he or she said in a statement but not claiming it was a forced confession. I would prefer a debate on this issue to focus more on what can be done. The Minister has to take political responsibility, but we also have a responsibility to bring forward proposals.