Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Senators who tabled these amendments. It is a difference of approach, and I have been considering it in the run-up to Committee Stage. Having heard the reasons and reasoned position put by Senators on Committee Stage, I have been considering it prior to dealing with it on Report Stage. Having considered it again I am still convinced, in further discussions with the Parliamentary Counsel, that the more general all-encompassing definitions are better. The more specificity we put into the Bill the more risk we run of exclusions because if lawyers ultimately argue that it was not specifically mentioned, and this was specifically mentioned, it has the potential to do the reverse of what we want in terms of other things we would like and have envisaged encompassing in the legislation.

In theory it is possible to seek to specifically state every potential wrongdoing under the Bill but, in truth, that would be an exhaustive list and there would always be something that would occur into the future that would not be encompassed by it. I am reliably informed by the Parliamentary Counsel that the general catch-all provisions capture all the matters that have been proposed by the Senators. All three amendments are captured by the provisions laid out, and much more. Once we go down the road of specificity we are narrowing definitions because we leave it open to argue that that was not set out as opposed to a general definition which can be argued captures wrongdoing in all its dimensions. For those reasons and having taken the advices of Parliamentary Counsel again, I am told that the more robust, encompassing and therefore better definitions are the ones in the Bill as published.