David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister and welcome the introduction of this Bill. It is important the Seanad plays its role in introducing legislation. When I introduced a Bill some four years ago, that was very unusual, but we have had a flurry of Bills introduced in the House and this shows political energy. While I compliment Senator Regan on introducing the Bill, the Minister was persuasive when he listed five principle sections of the legislation he felt did not meet the strict requirements of legislation because they were flawed in one way or another, either because of legal technicalities or constitutional matters.

The reason I asked for a minute of Senator Bacik's time was because I am concerned about this. First, it is a question of professional standards. I do not believe an amendment to the legislation should be used to excuse a lack of professional standards on the part of gardaí. If they made a mistake, that is fine and they must live with it. It is important to establish professionalism, and not just in this country. For example, in the OJ Simpson case, the chain of custody of the evidence was impugned. That was a mistake and it was quite right it was highlighted.

I feel the old saw — I am not sure whether this saw comes from European, American, British, European or Irish law — "The fruit of the rotten tree is always suspect" is right. If it is a rotten tree, its fruit should be suspect, subject to the kind of considerations that were put on the record so ably by Senator Bacik.

One of the issues that would concern me in particular is not telephone bugging. My telephone has been bugged, but it was impossible to do anything about it at that stage. I asked Mary Robinson to get involved, but I lived with it. There is something much worse than telephone bugging. It should be remembered we collaborated with the Americans during the rendition period. They, our democratic allies, extracted information from people under torture. The information obtained was found to be so rotten and lousy, it was unusable in most instances. The obtaining of it was a violation of decency. Evidence extracted under torture should never be allowed. Although the British claimed they did not participate actively in this practice, they were perfectly happy to use the fruit of the rotten tree. I never want to see that happen in this jurisdiction.