Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister. I agree with this Bill. Despite the urgency with which it must be passed - I note Senator Barrett's comments and agree with him to a point - I welcome the fact that the Minister is considering introducing more detailed legislation next year. We hope many of the amendments Senator Barrett proposes to table tomorrow will be included in that. We must be reasonable in this House.

Two aspects of this Bill strike me as important. I refer to expanding the relevant offences in the applicant for a road haulage operators' licence to include a broader range of offences. These included drug trafficking as well as other serious convictions. My understanding is that an offence under the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 has been added on the advice of the Attorney General's office, which is a sensible addition. It is important to note that the kinds of offences about which we are talking are very serious ones. Somebody with a minor criminal record will not be precluded from being a road haulier. That is not the intention of the Bill and we should not get carried away with this kind of thought.

The list of positions to which the offences apply can now include directors of organisations, business partners and drivers in passenger transport operations. This is a really good idea in so far as we need to keep these serious criminals out of the industry or, as Senator Heffernan said, prohibit them from carrying children, and so on.

I welcome the Bill and compliment the Minister and his Department on their work.