Jillian van Turnhout (Independent)

I am disappointed that this has been rejected on the basis that the Attorney General has not had time and because the clock is ticking down. I appreciate the Minister's honesty in saying that. When I tabled the amendment I considered our EU obligations in complying with the European arrest warrant framework. I was very careful with the language used. I appreciate it needs to be considered by the Attorney General, but I fear it puts Ireland in a different situation.

I will outline another hypothetical case. If a group of French oil workers was murdered in an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in a Gulf state, there would be no question of extraditing those suspected of involvement to the Gulf state as it applies the death penalty and its justice and prison system falls far short of the acceptable international norms. Some months later a suspect is identified. He is a national of the Gulf state in question and has fled to Ireland in the meantime. On the basis of the passive personality principle, that is, the French nationality of the victims, France may wish to prosecute the fugitive and, therefore, a European arrest warrant is issued. It is unclear if Ireland would surrender the person in such circumstances. While the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 would appear to allow Ireland to exercise a form of universal jurisdiction in such offences, it could be argued that we should not surrender where we would assert a universal jurisdiction while France would assert jurisdiction on the basis of the passive personality principle.

If we take a similar case that is not terrorist-related, Ireland only exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction for murder in the case of an Irish suspect and not an Irish victim. That being so the fact that France exercises its jurisdiction on the basis of the nationality of the victim would mean that we would need to refuse surrender. This is more or less precisely what happened in the case of Mr. Bailey - albeit a more dramatic example. I feel we are exposing Ireland as a place for fugitives because we do not have clarity on the issue. I obviously admire the work the Minister is doing and I will not press the amendment because he has been honest with me. If I had been told the wording of my amendment had been flawed and I had not done my homework adequately, I would feel that was fair enough. However, I am being told that the clock is ticking down - we are finishing up tomorrow, will not have time to go back to back to the Dáil and will not have time for the Attorney General to consider it. Is that really how we should be legislating? I am extremely disappointed.