Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 25, subsection (1), lines 25 and 26, to delete paragraph (a).

This refers to the detention powers in the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996, which we have already discussed. This amendment is to retain the requirement that a chief superintendent be involved in the detention rather than reducing the requirement, as the Minister's provision does, to superintendent. As I have already said, there are measures in this Bill that amount to a creeping extension of detention powers, including the lengths of detention for different offences. However, we are also seeing a creeping reduction in the level of checks and balances placed on powers of detention by legislation. In section 22, although removing the reference to a chief superintendent and replacing it with superintendent is not a highly significant change in itself, it is part of a general reduction in the safeguards that are necessary to ensure, as the Minister himself has said, people are detained for no longer than is absolutely necessary and that their detention is subjected to sufficient scrutiny and to the rigour of law.

There is another provision in section 22 which, again, raises concern about a creeping reduction in checks and balances; namely, subsection (4), which provides for the removal of the requirement that the 1996 Act be reviewed. As I understand it, the effect of subsection (4) is to remove the Oireachtas review mechanism that is currently in the 1996 Act so that the detention provisions of the Act in particular will continue in operation indefinitely. Given that we have already debated review powers and given that section 8 of the Bill provides for a 12 month review, which I welcome, it is unfortunate the review mechanism in the 1996 Act is being removed. I ask the Minister to consider retaining the requirement in respect of a chief superintendent in the 1996 Act, particularly as these are seven-day detention provisions.