Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The Bill has a very specific focus, namely, to address certain deficiencies in the current law pertaining to the conduct of an inquest by a coroner. These deficiencies, including the restriction on the number of medical witnesses and the outdated sanction for non-attendance of a witness or juror, have, albeit in a limited number of cases, combined to inhibit the conduct of fair inquests in a manner sufficient to inform the family and relations of a deceased person and society at large. The Bill contains some amendments, which I proposed in the Lower House. These are largely of a technical nature and were agreed to. The Government agrees with the proposal to support the Bill as it now stands.

In recent months, certain cases have helped to highlight the particular inadequacies of the current law as set out in the Coroners Act 1962, not least the case to which some publicity was given, namely, that of the Nowlan family and their child, Pierce. Since these pertinent cases are still current, the Seanad will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for me to discuss the details at this time but I know that they are very sad cases.

The Seanad will be aware that the Government's legislative programme, announced at the beginning of the session, contained a commitment to replace the 1962 Act with a modern code of law, to establish a coroner service and to transform the organisation of coroners. My proposals for a Bill have been with Departments and the Attorney General for necessary observations and I expect to be in a position to bring them to Government before the end of the year. I do not wish to anticipate its decision. However, if there is agreement, I intend to publish the, more than 90, heads of a very large and comprehensive Bill for public consultation purposes during the drafting process.

The coroner service is one of the oldest public offices of State in the common law system. Its origins date back many hundreds of years. Prior to the Act of 1962, a Coroners Act 1927 was introduced by the Free State. My predecessor as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, began the process of reform that is now coming to an end. He established an expert working group, the coroners review group, to examine all aspects of the coroner service with a view to bringing forward recommendations for reform. The report was published in December 2000. It contained 110 recommendations covering a wide range of issues. The work of the review group was added to by the subsequent report of the coroners rules committee, which was published in November 2003.

The Coroners Society of Ireland, as the body which represents coroners, has been active in the process of reform, for which I thank it. I met the society on a number of occasions in recent years and there continues to be ongoing contact, as well as meetings with departmental officials, to advance the reform process. The key objectives of the comprehensive Bill that I intend to bring to Government, in accordance with the programme for Government, will be to provide for considerable updating and streamlining of the death investigation and of post mortem and inquest procedures to ensure a better and more proper service than is currently possible under the Coroners Act 1962.

To achieve these objectives, I am focussing on two critical elements in the reform of the coroner service. These include widening of scope of the inquest and developing optimum structures and administration for a modern coroner service. The central element of a modern death investigation service must be to allow sufficient scope to the coroner to carry out the best possible investigation. The 1962 Act, and a subsequent interpretation of its intention and scope by the Supreme Court in the cases of Greene v. McLoughin and the Eastern Health Board v. Farrell, provided for a restrictive approach to the examination of how people died. The examination is limited to establishing the proximate medical cause of death. Such a limitation is no longer appropriate in light of the developments in medical care and treatment since 1962 and it increasingly threatens to bring the inquest process into disrepute. We must now move to expand the scope of the coronial investigation. We must require that the coroner seek to establish, in so far as is practicable, the circumstances in which the deceased met his or her death.

Widening the scope of the coroner's investigation was recommended by the review group, reflects the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and is consistent with developments in other common law jurisdictions. A series of judgments in the European Court of Human Rights must, in any development of my Bill, be taken into account to ensure compliance with the convention. These judgments interpret Article 2 of the convention as providing for a more extensive investigation of the circumstances of death beyond the strict "how in the particular circumstances" question, which is the substance of an inquest under existing law. They indicate that a certain extension of the scope of an inquest is now required if Ireland is to meet the obligations of the convention. However, any proposed extension of the coroner's investigation would have to be balanced by maintaining the prohibition on explicit determination of questions of criminal liability at an inquest.

From any widening of the scope of an inquiry, there would be knock-on developments. These would include no arbitrary restriction on the number and type of medical or other witnesses who can be summoned to appear at an inquest, increased sanctions for those who refuse to co-operate with a coroner's investigation into a death, powers of compellability for the coroner similar to those of a tribunal of inquiry, expressly stated powers for a coroner in respect of control of the body of the deceased and other matters — including power of entry and seizure — greater involvement of the coroner on the movement of bodies in and out of the State and, in a case where the coroner is concerned, that a "fact of death" certificate be held by an undertaker before disposal of a body.

The coroners review group envisaged certain powers for the coroner similar to those available to a tribunal of inquiry. It is suggested that procedures relating to evidence, access to documents, etc., will have to be developed in that regard in respect of the coroner's inquest. The right of access to documentation by all the parties concerned could become a critical point, particularly in regard to hospital, Garda or other State agency reports. There would be a need to respect the constitutional and legal rights of witnesses similar to the situation at a tribunal. We need to ensure consistent and efficient procedures in light of a new legal situation, which would have resource implications. It could not be assured under the current ramshackle coronial system.

The primary concern of the coroners review group was to ensure that a high quality coroner service, with optimal resources and supports, be developed. To achieve that outcome, it recommended a comprehensive overhaul and modernisation of the service. As regards the number of coroners, the review group envisaged an evolution to a regionalised structure where there would be fewer than the current 48 coronial districts provided for in the 1962 Act. I am satisfied that the current organisation of coroners must be reformed. The proposed Bill that I have advanced for consideration by the Government will address all the policy issues, including best practice in the law on coroners, their organisation and support structures.

In regard to the Bill before us, as I said during the Second Stage debate in the Dáil, I was, in effect, confronted by a choice. I could have chosen to table my own breakout Bill with this set of provisions in it along the lines being considered today, or I could have presented a full Bill of the type which is being finalised. My view was that neither the Dáil nor the Seanad was likely to deal with two coroners Bills in the lifetime of either House. We are facing a general election in the next 14 to 18 months. I am doubtful whether a short Bill of this kind would have survived the predictable criticism that would be levied that I was not addressing the wider issues of radical reform which exist. Therefore, I very much welcome this Bill because it is an agreed remedial measure which allows the major reform project to advance in parallel with it. It solves the immediate injustices that would flow from leaving the law as it stands while I proceed with the project of major reform.

The short Bill has, I believe, benefited from the amendments I proposed, which are of a technical nature. The Bill, as originally introduced by Deputy Rabbitte in the other House, proposed to treat equally as regards penalty non-attending jurors and non-attending witnesses. As Senators will note from the Bill, that has been changed. Clearly, it is much more serious if a relevant witness says "I will not attend" than if a juror decides that a football match is more important than answering a summons. To deal with those two situations with the same penalties would be somewhat unfair. I agree with Deputy Rabbitte that the current derisory penalties meant, in effect, that the price of a taxi fare was the maximum fine that could be imposed, and that too was unfair.

I am confident that the abolition on the restriction on the number of medical witnesses together with the updated level of sanctions for non-attendance and non-co-operation of a juror or witness will enhance the role of a coroner in his or her investigation in the interim number of months until this and the other House have an opportunity to deal with the major Bill that is approaching finality.

I am happy to support the Bill as it now stands. I will not be proposing any amendments to it in this House. I congratulate Deputy Rabbitte for bringing forward the Bill in the Dáil and Senator Tuffy for her party's role in getting this Bill before this House. I want to say to the Nowlan family that while this measure cannot undo the past I believe it can stand as an assistance to them, and to people in similar circumstances to those in which they have found themselves, that something can be done. It is useful on the last day of the legislative term——