Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Several legal practitioners contacted me to express concerns in respect of the retrospective element of this Bill. I understand the Minister has taken the advice of the Attorney General in this matter, but there are concerns about penalty points issued since 1 August. I warned about retrospective legislation on a previous occasion.

Fortunately the Supreme Court held it to be unconstitutional. The entire Bill was thrown out in 2004. I have concerns about it because I come from a legal background. I fully understand that the Minister is trying to follow the correct course to deal with the problem. I believe that it will be challenged.

The penalty points that result in a driver being put off the road have been reduced from 12 to seven. A legal colleague has raised with me question of offences that occurred when the 12 point rule applied, but by the time the matter came to court, the seven point rule applied. Where does that leave the person involved? Will that be considered? The legislation made that retrospective too. Our role as legislators is to ensure that all legislation stays within the provisions of the Constitution. My legal colleagues have expressed genuine concern about these issues. We all in the legal profession like a good legal challenge that starts off in the High Court and goes to the Supreme Court. These are the checks and balances we are fortunate to have in our Constitution to deal with these concerns.

My office and another legal office in Cork identified a problem regarding nursing homes and emergency legislation was rushed through. It is amazing that this always happens in December. We highlighted the problem in December 2004. It went into the High Court which decided not to allow a judicial review because we had not given adequate provision to the health board to deal with the issue. The Department's response was to rush emergency legislation through the Dail and Seanad in three days. The President was concerned about it because it made legislation retrospective. She referred it to the Supreme Court which in February 2005 found it to be unconstitutional. Since then I have always been concerned about legislation coming through in December, particularly if it goes through the Houses in three days. There is always someone there are waiting to make sure the t's are crossed and the i’s dotted. This needs to be carefully considered before we sign off on it.