Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and say how pleased we are that this Bill has passed all Stages. I also compliment his officials on their work.

It brings into effect the three Schedules. These, effectively, are additional Schedules dealing with terrorism measures etc., which we fully support. On Second Stage a point I made, which was echoed by Senator Quinn, was that these protocols are six, four and three years old, respectively, and a better mechanism than the current one must be put in place to speed up the process of ratifying such protocols. The Minister, Deputy McDowell, stated on Second Stage that he would look at whether it is necessary to include them as Bills, as in this case, or whether it can be done in another way. I hope we have learned and improve the time of passage of similar protocols in the future.

These protocols will assist in our fight against terrorism. My party fully supports the Bill and commends the Minister of State and his officials on its passage.