John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

Section 4 provides the circumstances under which an authorisation may be sought. Subsection 1 deals with applications made by members of An Garda Síochána. The applicant must have reasonable grounds for believing that the surveillance is necessary for obtaining information about the commission of an arrestable offence, for the prevention of arrestable offences or for maintaining the security of the State. The Bill provides for a member of An Garda Síochána to apply for an authorisation for surveillance with respect to the investigation or prevention of arrestable offences. This sufficiently captures the gangland crime-type offences mentioned. For this reason, I do not propose to accept the amendment.