Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 34:

In page 28, line 11, to delete “A person” and substitute “A person under whose direction the activities are being conducted”.

I am open to persuasion on this one. I have been reading it myself. We want to make sure that the perpetrator of a wrong is the person who is prosecuted. I am talking about offences and penalties. What we have at the moment in section 27(2) is: "A person who contravenes a condition of a licence granted under the relevant statutory provisions (for which contravention an offence is not provided elsewhere in this Act) shall be guilty of an offence." We are looking to make sure that the person under whose direction those activities were conducted is also the person who is taken to account. For example, people working in forestry could be given a direction by whoever owns that forest to fell trees in a certain area. That might happen in the normal run of their work. They could be felling trees in contravention of the licence that is granted, so there is a question of who is in the wrong. Is it the person who felled the trees under the direction of his or her boss, or is it the boss him- or herself? We want to state that it is an offence to fell a tree that should not be felled, but we would not want to see, for example, the owner of the forest getting away with unlicensed felling in full knowledge of what he or she is up to while the worker is scapegoated. I am open to the Minister of State's answer on this one.