Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 15:

To delete subsection (4) and substitute the following:

“(4) Provision of or availing of a remote, web-based service shall, if the Irish Sign Language user consents, be sufficient to meet the obligations of a public body under this section.”.

Moving an amendment to an amendment sounds a little like poetry or pedantry but I can only describe this amendment as legislative poetry. Earlier in the debate on the Bill there was huge discussion and argument on the difference between "required" and "reasonable". The original amendment had been that "A public body shall do all that is required". The argument which was made by the writers of the poetry opposite me was that, in fact, because of the lack of capacity in terms of the number of sign language interpreters available to the State at present, we cannot put a burden on the State that we know is not reasonable, and we can only do what is reasonable. It was suggested that, because of this legislation, there will be opportunities for sign language interpreters into the future but we must do all that is reasonable, and that is the balance of legislation. Again, part of the poetry of the writing of this legislation was the issue of the very generous suggestion and proposal from the Minister of State's officials in regard to the headline. The original headline in our proposal was "Principles to guide public bodies", whereas the officials suggested the wording "Duty of public bodies", which is far more important and forceful, and puts a greater onus on public bodies to ensure they do what they are required to do under the legislation.

We are proposing an amendment to the amendment, which is rare enough, but when we are writing this kind of poetry, we might as well use every rule in the book. While we would all assume that, due to technology, one could have a sign language interpreter with an iPhone who could hear the conversation, there are, of course, situations where there is more than one person in the room discussing, say, a medical issue with a member of the deaf community who does not want another family member there. For example, there might be more than one consultant and there might be a team of doctors in the room, and the same could apply in a legal situation where a person is getting advice or there is questioning from gardaí. Where there is more than one member of the deaf community and one other person, using web-based interpreting is not appropriate or practical. Again, this proposal arose due to the discussions with the deaf community over the summer, including face-to-face meetings. These discussions in themselves proved the point, in that if we were trying to have those discussions with web-based interpreting, it would have been impossible.

I hope the Minister of State will agree to the amendment to the amendment. We are delighted to support the proposal on the duty of public bodies. The amendment we ask the Minister of State to support states: “Provision of or availing of a remote, web-based service shall, if the Irish Sign Language user consents, be sufficient to meet the obligations of a public body under this section.” It is with the consent of the sign language user that the web-based service would be provided, and this could be done in many circumstances. However, in those circumstances where it is not practical and would not give the right outcome, we need to ensure the permission of the member of the deaf community is given.