Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)

Schedule 2 sets out the procedure for dealing with appeals. The provisions regarding the service of a notice of appeal by an appellant and the making of submissions by other persons allow each person to make only one submission in regard to the appeal unless the appeal board requests further submissions or observations from that person. The proposed amendment is inconsistent with that approach. Furthermore, it would be inappropriate to require all submissions received by the appeal board to be supplied to the licensee without also supplying them to the other parties to the appeal.

In addition, there may be circumstances where it would be inappropriate for submissions to be provided to persons other than the appeal board. To give an example, a situation could arise where a licence is revoked by the private security authority on foot of information from the Garda Síochána that the licensee is involved in paramilitary activity. If the licensee appealed the revocation of the licence and the appeal board requested a submission from the Garda, it might not be appropriate that the submission from the Garda regarding the licensee's activities be given to the licensee.

The amendment proposes that the licensee would submit submissions or observations to the private security authority. The authority is not the appropriate party to consider submissions made in the context of an appeal. That is the role of the appeal board. In the circumstances I am not disposed to accept the amendment.