Derek McDowell (Labour)

The Senator will appreciate that we are criminalising assaults on firemen, nurses in hospitals and people engaged in the due execution of their duties. The real question is whether someone rendering medical assistance other than in a hospital should be the subject of this provision, such as a general practitioner on a house call who becomes involved in a fracas there. In this legislation, we have decided not to extend the provision to that situation. The ordinary law applies. If one assaults any GP or paramedic, one is liable to be prosecuted. Special penalties do not necessarily apply.

I spoke about the fireman in question on the Gerry Ryan programme. He received a number of stitches to his face after a bottle was put through the windscreen of his fire tender. The offence, which involved that man's serious disfigurement — I hope he makes as good a recovery as he can — carries a sentence of life imprisonment. In this Bill, we are providing a seven-year penalty for someone who throws a bottle at a fireman and misses, assaults a nurse working in an accident and emergency unit or a paramedic. We are introducing serious penalties. Other forms of serious assault can be pursued independently of the matters in question. As the Senator knows, these provisions were being drafted before the fire tender assault.