David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is very useful that the present Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, was the Chairman of the committee that produced the report and is familiar with the situation. It is worth pointing out that the report did recommend, as I understand it, the inclusion of a definition. That is the first point.

The second point is that the Minister of State stated he is interested in waiting until we get the results from the operation of a similar Act in the United Kingdom in terms of the definitions and so on and so forth. That is in the autumn. Is he suggesting that we suspend the passage of this Bill until the autumn? The Minister of State has indicated "No", so I would be interested to hear if he has anything further to say on that.

With regard to the definitions, could I just point out there are two pages of definitions in the Bill already? We define all the different Acts, an interim barring order, a barring order, a child, a civil partner, a court, a dependent person, an emergency barring order, full age, interim barring order, Minister, prohibited degree of relationship, protection order, respondent, a safety order, spouse, welfare and so on. We have a whole range of definitions already. The Minister is quite correct that the Civil Service in particular is very often anxious not to create a list that appears to be exhaustive. It has very good reason for that, because it is beyond the wit of man to produce a list of anything that is really exhaustive. I have a positive, practical suggestion to address the issue. What I suggest is the inclusion of words along the lines of "may include" or "shall include". That means that it is very clear in the legislation that it is not exhaustive. It includes certain things, which are considered to be the main items that will be considered by a court, but there may well be other ones. I think "shall include" would be better as by putting that in, one would thereby overcome the obstacle of a hypothetical further situation that arises down the line.

The Law Society and Barnardos, among others, have suggested these things. The provision is also in operation in the United Kingdom where the difficulty that the Minister of State perceives has not been found to exist. As the Act there is in operation with a definition, it remains for us to be told what precisely is unusual in the Irish situation that means we cannot have a definition whereas in the United Kingdom they have operated one and apparently with some success. It seems to me that this was the principal area outlined. I did ask the Minister of State what are the stumbling blocks and I had a slight consultation with a colleague about voting patterns so I might have missed something but the main objection was the fact that this might purport to be an exhaustive list and that it would complicate matters. I think I suggested a way around that which the Minister of State and his advisers might consider.