Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Yesterday, a number of Members raised the issue of age discrimination in the House. I can give the Leader an example of how our legislation contains concrete and inexplicable age discrimination. Recently, I discovered that people over the age of 70 are ineligible to serve on a jury. This matter relates to the Juries Act 1976. It seems crazy that people over 70 are completely ineligible to serve on a jury. This legislation must be amended quickly. Such people are wise, probably have time on their hands and have acquired great judgment from their years of experience. Why are they disbarred from serving on a jury? It is acceptable for a person to go into a jury box and be challenged by either the prosecution or the defence. However, making someone ineligible on the basis of age appears to be quite a ridiculous notion. I ask the Leader to request the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to introduce a short amendment to the Juries Act 1976 enabling people over 70 years of age to serve on juries. It should be introduced in this House, as the matter has been raised here. If he will not introduce an amendment, I will. We must root out this kind of age discrimination which exists in our legislative code.