Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving a little more detail. He referred to the Keating case in 1990, but I am aware of more recent cases. In the Bernie case - I was involved also in a related case - one of the reasons the Court of Criminal Appeal objected to a challenge to the jurisdiction of the Special Criminal Court was because the accused has not raised the point concerning the lawfulness of rearrest and consequent detention at an earlier stage. That case was much more recent than 1990, so there has been an organic shift to putting some pressure on defence solicitors, in particular to flag issues of lawfulness of detention and jurisdiction at an early stage. That may be why that matter has arisen, if indeed it has.

The provisions the Minister is inserting are too restrictive of the accused's right to raise what may be legitimate challenges. The Minister himself said he could appreciate that there might be some issues where there was a glaringly obvious problem - for example, with the detention - where they could be raised in court. I still fail to see the point of this provision.