Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

To be fair, there is an understanding of where we are in regard to this issue. I would agree with this amendment if we were talking about a garda giving opinion evidence as to the guilt of a particular person. It would have to be someone of senior rank of the Garda to give that evidence, obviously with the addition of corroborative evidence, but that is not what we are about. What we are about here is the proof of the existence generally of a gang, not that the accused or any accused before a court is a member of that gang. That is subject to additional proofs. This is purely and simply about the existence of a gang and I repeat that the strong advice of the Garda Síochána - I accept that Members of this House would be willing to accept the advice of the gardaí in this respect - is that they do not want their hands tied in regard to the rank that is required under this section to prove the existence of a gang.

As I said previously, while a chief superintendent is not excluded from the section as drafted, it may be that the local chief superintendent may have recently been appointed to the area and may not have the first clue about the place. The gardaí are very much of the view that their hands would be tied in regard to the people they would proffer to the court as the people who have the direct local expertise or knowledge. They have indicated that, more than likely, it would be a detective inspector but it may be a detective sergeant or an ordinary sergeant. They do not want their hands tied in this regard because they believe that if it is put at the level of chief superintendent it will cause severe difficulties and it could result in a chief superintendent going into court who would not have particular direct personal knowledge of the existence of the gang. That would leave that chief superintendent exposed under severe cross-examination because any good lawyer would ask the question: "Do you know from your own knowledge of the existence of a gang" and if the chief superintendent did not know that for a fact, and there was somebody else in the gardaí locally who did know that fact, this legislation would be somewhat of a laughing stock in that we are forcing them to produce somebody who does not necessarily know of the existence, from their knowledge, of a gang whereas there is someone else in the local area who has that knowledge. Senator O'Donovan and Senator Mary White put it very well in terms of their experience.