Derek McDowell (Labour)

I remind the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and all those of the same mind that rapists, homicidal people and assailants would be more careful and less likely to commit offences if they knew there was a significant chance of trace evidence of DNA being used to tie them to particular offences. Therefore, this is not just a matter of the civil liberties and rights of those accused — I take on board Senator Quinn's comments — it is also about the rights of innocent people not to have crimes perpetrated against them by persons who currently exploit the fact that there is no trace of them. Such persons would be more circumspect about their criminal behaviour if they knew they could be traced.

We are somewhat naive regarding the potential of DNA evidence. I went to Northern Ireland and spoke with representatives of its police service, which frequently uses DNA evidence as part of its investigative methods. While the service cannot make the evidence stand up in court, contact DNA is frequently used to give it a hint about who it should be looking for. Police would swab the entire locus within which stolen property was found and go hunting for potential leads, an approach that greatly assists the service in the suppression of crime and the identification of accused persons. As Senator Quinn said, there have been cases where people were found not guilty and exculpated on foot of DNA evidence, which would not have been possible were there no sophisticated DNA system.

These issues should be examined in the context of DNA legislation. As Senator Jim Walsh put it, the provisions of this Bill are fairly conservative. We are not changing the philosophy regarding samples, but we must revisit the matter, as we need a coherent view on what Joe and Josephine Soap want the balance to be between potential victims and perpetrators.