Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In view of what the Minister has said, I do not want to divide the House on the amendment in my name because I know what would actually happen. It is an inevitable consequence at this hour of the evening - I am not naive. However, I want to say strongly that some of the points made by Senator Higgins and me need to be considered. I am sensitive in this regard. I am not saying that this is my Bill, because it is not really my Bill - it is the House's Bill. However, I do not want it to be argued that the acceptance of a Private Members' Bill produced another disaster two years down the road. I do not want people to ask why it was never discussed or looked at carefully. This is not a matter of saving face or preferring one person's drafting to another. It is really a matter of doing the right thing, and not making a second mistake. Bearing in mind that nobody ever saw the Court of Appeal judgment coming, we can now see a potential car crash which might easily take place, and we are looking forward at it. We must adjust what we are doing to deal with scenarios that we know are very likely to happen. The idea of a sibling being the main witness in the case of a child homicide is not fantastic by any standards. It has probably happened many times, and probably will happen many times. I can well imagine the court ruling that the witness may not be identified in any coverage of the case, but I can see no justification for the assertion that because identifying the child victim may result in the identification of the witness, then the child victim cannot be identified. That would be a huge injustice to many families, and it is not right. I will leave it at that. I will withdraw my amendment but I may come back to it on Friday.