Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Considering these two sections side by side, a person in authority is entitled to a better defence than a person who is not in authority under section 21. This is a strange thing to happen. If we did not face a guillotine and if we had the right to propose substantial amendments to the Bill and bring some rationality to it, surely we should provide that a person in authority faces a stiffer hurdle in defending a charge of interfering with a person with a mental disability or illness under his or her charge than any Joe or Josephine Soap charged with an offence generally committed on a protected person. There is an inconsistency of standard in this regard. It probably derives from the fact that the draftsman who devised the Dáil section approached it in a slightly more circumspect way and put in a different set of defences for a person in authority, which, curiously, is more generous than that provided under section 21. That is the only point I am making, and I am entitled to make it.