Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I declare my interest in this matter as I have represented people before the Special Criminal Court and have, therefore, worked with the provisions that are at issue in this motion.

I wish to put on the record, as I think all of us have done, our condemnation of the dreadful atrocity that took place at Omagh and which, as the Minister of State has said, was the motivation behind the passing of the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998. All of us will remember only too well the appalling carnage that took place that day in Omagh and we would all condemn it equally.

I would, however, like to register my own observations and reservations about the continuing in force of provisions of the Offences against the State Acts and, in particular, about the continued existence of the Special Criminal Court. Clearly the provisions at issue in this motion relate to the investigation and trial generally of scheduled offences, the trial of which will take place before that court. As we are aware, in many respects, the provisions allow departure from general rules and procedures that apply in the conduct of criminal investigations and criminal trials before the other criminal courts. In particular, serious encroachments on the right to silence are envisaged in the provisions at issue. They have been subject to a great deal of criticism not just from academics but also from practitioners and at international level. I wish to put on record some of those criticisms.

In the 1970s Mary Robinson, who was previously a Senator in this House, produced a pamphlet about the operation of the Special Criminal Court on which she had done a good deal of research. She expressed serious reservations about the use of a non-jury court to try particular offences. Much more recently the report of the expert committee to examine the Offences against the State Acts again expressed reservations about aspects of the legislation. There was strong dissent on the continued existence of the Special Criminal Court.

I referred to international criticism. In the Kavanagh case an international body criticised the referral of non-scheduled offences to the court by the Director of Public Prosecutions. There was a criticism of that power of referral. Clearly, there has been a move in recent years to use the Special Criminal Court to try non-scheduled offences. All of us would share great concern at the rise of so-called organised crime and the incidence of seriously violent crimes. We would also all agree that more should be done for the victims of such crime. I have done research on that area and have called for different ways of dealing with and providing support to victims that would greatly improve their experience of the criminal justice process.

There are other ways of dealing with organised crime than to dispense with jury trial and to use the sort of procedures that are envisaged under the offences against the State legislation. With less extreme variations we could apply the ordinary criminal justice code to organised crime in the way we have seen in the United States in the trials of organised crime, racketeering etc.

We should have a debate on the matter. The main point is that the motion should not go through on the nod. We should not be in the business of simply rubber-stamping the continued existence of the provisions for a further 12 months without serious consideration in particular of the provisions that have not been used. The Minister of State indicated that sections 6, 12 and 17 of the Offences