Derek McDowell (Labour)

I apologise that Senator Ryan, our spokesman on these matters, cannot be here.

This Bill raises an issue we rarely discuss, namely, diplomatic immunity. I was struck reading the speeches on Second Stage in the Dáil and listening to contributions here, by the automatic acceptance that it is necessary and good. I agree but only up to a point. The Minister of State listed some of the exemptions and immunities conferred by the Vienna conventions. Some are self evident, such as the inviolability of the embassy building, documentation and communications, which are necessary for diplomats to do their jobs and represent their countries.

It is not clear, however, particularly in the context of the EU and our relations with other states, why we cannot levy rates on embassies or why they should be exempt from social security provisions and free from taxation or customs duties. These are not academic issues. A year or two ago, there was an industrial dispute in an embassy in Dublin, where the trade union representing the workers in the dispute ultimately contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs in that country to put pressure on so the country would not claim immunity from Irish and European labour law, as it was entitled to do. I do not see why it makes sense that a country should be entitled to say it will not treat its workers well because it has diplomatic immunity and is not required to apply Irish labour law. Nor do I see why we should exempt European Union or other embassies from the general requirements of property taxation or the taxation of normal workers.

This is worth examining. The general thrust of the Bill is to limit the exemptions rather than extend them but we take too much of this for granted and much of it is simply the application of the normal law of the land to the workforce in embassies. We should be slow to undermine it.

It struck me as odd that we seek to confer the force of an Act of the Oireachtas on orders that were made by the Government other than by Acts of the Oireachtas. Perhaps this has been done before but it is an extraordinary way to do things. We are saying that we may have done this on an ultra vires basis at the time but, after the fact, we have decided it should have been done by Acts of the Oireachtas and we now say it was. That is a strange way to go about things.

The Minister of State's speech is limited in its explanation of the genesis of the Bill. There have been court cases which sought to undermine the effect of Government orders made over the years. I do not know the details of those cases but I would like to know how the courts established that it was necessary to introduce this legislation to give retrospective legitimacy to orders made by Government. If the Minister of State has details on those cases, I would like to see them.

My image of diplomatic immunity is that it applies to the diplomats of other countries and well-known international organisations which might have delegations here. I was astonished, however, to read the very long list of organisations, most of which I had never heard of. Why is this necessary if these are legitimate organisations carrying out their lawful activities?