Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

In the normal course of events the evidence of psychiatrists will be heard by a judge on matters of this type and it would be extraordinary if that were not the case. There is a difference, however, between indicating that a judge will hear evidence as a matter of course and practice and prescribing in legislation that, as a necessary precondition of a judge exercising his or her jurisdiction, he or she must have obtained the opinions of two approved medical officers, one of whom is the clinical director of a designated centre. In effect, the amendment would trammel the court in the range and quality of evidence it could entertain on an inquiry of this nature and circumscribe it by requiring, as a necessary precondition, that the opinion of the persons indicated should be heard ahead of anyone else.