Alex White (Labour)

I support the amendments tabled by Senator Bacik and endorse her arguments in support of the changes she wants to make to the Bill. It is important to reflect on the fact that when we were debating the use of the Special Criminal Court and the Minister's apprehension about the intimidation of jurors, we were critical that he did not seek to employ or appear to seek to employ any other means of addressing that apprehension. He stated repeatedly he has considered the matter carefully, in addition to all the alternatives, but we have not been apprised of any of the alternatives. The conclusion the Minister arrived at was very blunt, that is, that juries should be taken out of the equation altogether in regard to the offences in question, with the proviso that the Director of Public Prosecutions may direct that a particular case be taken back from the Special Criminal Court, although that seems unlikely to occur. He seems to take the same approach in respect of the extension of detention hearings. The view or apprehension is largely based on one allegation and one case, to which Mr. Murray referred on television a couple of weeks ago. That is the only hard evidence placed before us to justify this provision.

In his Second Stage speech the Minister said "Experience in recent times has made it clear that hearings of applications to extend the detention period are being used to elicit as much information as possible from the Garda Síochána about the current state of the investigation and its direction." I understood the Minister to say in his earlier remarks that he was concerned that judges were put under pressure and he almost suggested that the judge was being "blaggarded" in some way by the lawyers and put under pressure that he could not withstand to reveal certain matters or to allow the Garda to reveal certain matters that it would not have been appropriate to reveal in those circumstances. The Minister did not use the word 'blaggarded' and I do not want to offend him by my paraphrase. If I do I will think twice about the word. Surely the way to deal with that problem is to re-examine the process and the sort of information that is, and requires to be, opened to the court to deal with a proposal to extend detention rather than take everybody out of the room.

This is the approach he has taken to the non-jury trials, a problem is perceived and everyone is removed from the court except the judge and the garda. It seems such an excessive response to a perceived problem as to be disproportionate. We do not know much about the instance to which Mr. Murray referred of solicitors sending text messages to their clients warning them about what was going on. That would be a very serious thing for a solicitor to do. It would seem to be a serious criminal offence for a solicitor to interfere with the course of justice, not just a question of ethics. If this matter is as serious as the outline given on television suggests I hope that it is being dealt with in the appropriate manner and has been referred to the DPP.

Senator Bacik is absolutely right to say that if solicitors are involved in such activity it blackens the profession and it is unfortunate that is being seen as evidence of a widespread activity rather than being one particular case. If there are other cases let that be said and brought into the debate in a more honest way than it has been. In his argument a few minutes ago the Minister seemed to refer to a plurality of such instances rather than one. Is he saying that? When did that case come to light? Did it happen recently or did the Minister know about the allegation made on television when the legislation was being drafted? Is that the reason for this provision or is it being invoked as a post facto justification for it? If there is a worry about the process of these detention hearings and concern that the management of the hearing is not quite right and about the nature and extent of the information given out why not address that and find a way to deal with it, rather than eliminate the key principals from the hearing?