David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am also getting a little bit worried because we are being told by the Minister of State to live horse and we will get grass - do not push the amendment, let us leave it and I will consider it. I can envisage that, even with the best will in the world, the Minister of State will come back and rabbit through the Bill on Report Stage, where we only have one opportunity to speak. I accept that the Minister of State is decent and that he has a real concern about this area, but there are anonymous forces operating behind the scenes.

I have already addressed the Minister of State's main difficulty in amendment No. 3 by inserting the following phrase in section 5(2): "The factors and circumstances referred to in subsection (1) shall include but is not limited to a list as devised by the Minister." That could not be clearer. This is by no stretch of the imagination an attempt to create an exhaustive list. How could it be? The wording plainly states that it is not. That argument is gone.

The Minister of State speaks very glowingly of the intricacies of the criminal mind and its capacity to invent circumstances not contemplated by legislation. I wonder if the Minister of State could give us an example of that? Is there an example of which we have not heard, where the criminal mind's ingenuity defeats the intelligence of the Oireachtas? I challenge the Minister of State to give me such an example. He is smiling broadly. I am not sure whether that means he has one in his back pocket. If he has, then let us include that in the list.