David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am dealing with what is before me.

Amendment No. 3 aims to apply all the provisions of Part 2 to an authorised person on whose functions relating to the investigation or bringing the prosecution of offences or both are conferred by an enactment. The definition proposed is overly broad, capturing all statutory bodies with a power to investigate and prosecute any offence including those of a regulatory nature, offences that would clearly follow the scope of criminal offences as intended in the EU directive. The difficulty lies in the fact that Ireland does not have a legal distinction between criminal offences and administrative or regulatory offences as exist in most EU countries. The precise scope of the amendment is unclear in that it provides no definitive list of persons or bodies captured. Consequently a victim will not be able to readily identify whether an authority with which he or she is interacting is covered by the Bill. Equally, where it is intended to place statutory responsibilities on a body, those bodies should be clearly identified and identifiable.