Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, subsection (2)(b)(i), line 8, to delete "citizen" and substitute "resident".

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. A short time has passed since Second Stage. My amendment is clear and I tabled it on Second Stage because of an anomaly, if not an absurdity, in section 3. Section 3(2) deals with the scope of the brokerage activities addressed in the Bill and applies to such activities that take place in the State. There is nothing contentious in that respect, but section 3(2)(b) extends the provision to activities carried out by an Irish citizen or Irish registered company outside the State. A difficulty arises in this respect in that, while I have no difficulty regarding the provision for companies, I question the provision for citizens. Many citizens leave the country and are never seen here again, but they continue to hold Irish passports.

My bemusement arises from how the State could control brokerage activities carried out by a person who has not set foot in this country for 20 or 30 years. How could the provision be enforced? If it cannot be implemented, legislating for it is bad practice. It reduces legislation to an aspirational level instead of making our law something that is enforced and respected. I focus on the simple practicality of whether it would be possible to enforce this provision, rather than on the wider issue of whether it is right to try to enforce the law on citizens who no longer have any connection with the country. The standard approach is that the jurisdiction of the State stops at its borders. There are good reasons this should be so. However, an argument needs to be made for extending the jurisdiction outside the State, but I am not sure how this can happen and it is a subject for another day.

For the moment I rest my case on the sheer impracticality of enforcing the provision on Irish citizens who have left the country, and no longer have any links with it, whatsoever. On the other hand, paradoxically, this section, as it is written, makes no attempt to control what is within our power to do. It makes no effort to capture brokerage activities carried on outside the State by someone who lives in Ireland but is not a citizen. We have a possible purchase on activities such as this because of a person's residency. Under the Bill as it stands the provisions only apply to activities as they are carried on outside the State, so that a person will actually escape if he or she does that. If someone is a resident here, or purposefully comes here, perhaps, and operates a brokerage outside the State, we can do nothing about it under this legislation. It is a loophole that should definitely be closed.

This section, on the one hand, purports to control activities by citizens who may not have had any connection with Ireland for years, but totally ignores activities carried out by residents who are here, simply because they are not citizens. If they are not citizens and live here we cannot do anything about it. I suggest both these anomalies could be resolved simply by substituting the word "resident" for "citizen" in subsection (2)(b) (i).