Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I join other speakers in welcoming the Minister of State to the House and the opportunity to debate this motion. However, to be against an organisation called COSI seems like being against motherhood and apple pie. I do not believe anyone could speak too critically of an organisation called COSI, a particularly strange and perhaps inappropriate acronym which conjures up images of cosy cartels and all sorts of other matters.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I support the opt-in to this committee. Clearly all of us support the concept of increased co-operation among judicial authorities and law enforcement bodies across the EU. It is important that there is effective co-operation to protect citizens, in particular given the types of criminal justice issues that have a transnational dimension. Senator O'Donovan referred to a number of these, including drug and human trafficking and so on. I note the remit of this committee is broad. Senator de Búrca mentioned that the definition of internal security covers matters beyond those clearcut transnational crimes such as drug and human trafficking. It covers border management, customs co-operation and civil crisis management, which are areas well beyond the remit of criminal justice. It seems sensible that we would have a standing committee of this type overseeing co-operation in terms of natural disasters. I am thinking in this regard of disasters such as the earthquake in Italy and the need for us to co-ordinate responses from across the EU.

As Senator de Búrca stated, it is important we are not uncritical and do not take too cosy a consensual approach to standing committees of this nature and that we scrutinise them in our contributions during debates in this House. We must be mindful that this is part of a long project by the EU seeking greater co-operation in criminal justice matters and in justice matters more broadly. I recall getting funding in 1997-98 from the EU under the then Grotius project, which was a project aimed at ensuring greater judicial co-operation, where we looked at differences in the conduct of rape trials across different member states with a view to improving procedures for victims of rape. The interesting aspect was to note the differences in approach between the criminal justice system in Ireland and in England and the criminal justice system in place in the other member states.

Of course this distinction between our adversarial system and the inquisitorial model used in other member states has thrown up difficulties for Ireland in signing up to measures like this that are designed to ensure greater co-operation among member states. There has always been a caution here, and rightly so, that we must be careful about signing up to measures that will dilute our own standards of criminal justice or dilute in some way our constitutional guarantee of due process.

I am mindful also of a word of warning issued by one of the pre-eminent legal academics on this island on criminal procedure, Professor Dermot Walsh from Limerick, who wrote a comprehensive review of the law on the European arrest warrant earlier this year. The European arrest warrant was also somewhat controversial, and is now in place since we passed an Act in 2003 to implement the European arrest warrant model, but it replaced a long-standing set of procedures around extradition. Professor Walsh, in writing about this and reviewing the operation of the European arrest warrant in Ireland, asks whether the European arrest warrant will result in individuals being surrendered for prosecution for offences which would not have been prosecuted in the surrendering state, and whether it will result in co-operative forum shopping among police and prosecutors to enhance the prospects of a conviction. His concern is that Irish citizens are being surrendered to other member states to be prosecuted there through a criminal process which may fall below established Irish constitutional norms in some respects. That is a word of caution from a leading academic who has done the best review I have seen of the European arrest warrant. It is useful to bear those sort of comments in mind when we examine this standing committee model.

However, I note that while COSI's remit is broad on internal security, it will not be involved in conducting operations or in legislation. Clearly, its functions are limited. It seems to be some sort of oversight committee. Like Senator de Búrca, I think there is a lack of detail so far, for example, in the sort of representatives we will be appointing to the COSI, and I ask the Minister of State to clarify that. I note he stated in his speech it will be up to each member state to decide on the appropriate representatives and it will depend to some extent on the subject matter. Clearly, one would expect different officials to be present if immigration were to be discussed as opposed to something more directly related to criminal justice, but it strikes me that the danger then is that there is a rolling representation on the committee and a lack of continuity. Will there be somebody, presumably in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who will have overall responsibility for the Irish liaison to COSI? That would be useful to know.

There is one other point that is important for us in this House to be clear about, and that is how national parliaments will be kept informed. I am happy to hear that the Council is to keep national parliaments and the European Parliament informed of the proceedings of the committee but I wonder what mechanism will be used. For example, will reports come to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights?

Having raised these issues and concerns, I support the opt-in. It is sensible to have a committee of this type. There is a lack of clarity at present about what it will do in practice but we just need a little more guidance from the Minister of State on that.

I suppose Senator Norris's comments struck a chord with all of us. I thought of the Heathrow experience which all, Irish citizens or not, travelling to Ireland must go through. The Irish departures lounge is like a little colony offshore of the main Heathrow terminal. I do not know whether that can be addressed by COSI. It might fall outside the remit.