Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The amendment relates to situations in which the person has been provisionally arrested pending receipt of the formal request from the sentencing state. The existing proposal in the Bill is that the court should remand the person in custody. The amendment proposes to delete the requirement that the remand should be in custody, instead merely stating that the person should be remanded. I am unable to accept the amendment because remand in custody following provisional arrest is established practice under extradition law.

Application of the procedures under the Extradition Act and the European Arrest Warrant Act to the new situation seem appropriate since the procedures provided for in the present Bill are in many respects an alternative to extradition or to surrender with the benefit that the person gets the opportunity to serve the sentence in his or her home state.

It must also be remembered that the person has already absconded from the sentencing state and so has shown a propensity for fleeing. If the person had not fled, he or she would be in detention in the sentencing state. Allowing for the possibility of release following provisional arrest would undeniably result in absconders doing another disappearing act. Therefore, I do not propose to accept the amendment.