Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I move amendment No. 38:

In page 61, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:

"(7) Documents subject to legal professional privilege shall not be liable to production under this section.".

This amendment ensures the authorised officer's power is constitutional. When I raised this issue on Committee Stage, the Minister stated the amendment was not necessary and implied it was not used in other legislation. However, this is incorrect. Similar wording is used in many other recent Acts and I will cite three of them. I refer to section 17 of the Irish Medicines Board (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006, sections 96 and 131 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 and section 16 of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act 2004. These constitute three good examples in which this provision is used and appears to be required. The sense of what is appropriate prompted me to table the amendment in the first place. My comments today are in response to the Minister's comments on Committee Stage. The amendment should be accepted this time, based on the information I have provided.