James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Senator Ward rightly points out and Senator McDowell accepts, this already happens in court trials in regard to admissibility, probative value versus prejudicial value and a judge has to make those calls on the basis, sometimes, that if the evidence was allowed to go to the jury for it to decide, perhaps it may put the accused in a prejudicial position. Trial by jury is the cornerstone of our legal system. Its purpose is as a bulwark for the accused against a potential Government of tyranny. That is why we have a jury system. Senator McDowell speaks to a wider point that does merit discussion, although perhaps not in terms of this Bill, which is around whether we are trusting our juries less and less by getting into more technical preliminary hearings about what they should and should not hear. Nonetheless, the purpose of the preliminary hearings and allowing those applications is to ensure that the evidence that goes before the jury is the real evidence of the case and not evidence that may taint the jury in terms of its views and outlook. As the decades move on, we will get a better other understanding of psychology and how people think and the biases that people may.

I understand the Senator's argument and where he is coming from, but such hearings already happen. All we are doing in this Bill is facilitating these types of applications that happen in trials to be made in a more timely fashion and to allow trials to proceed in a more efficient manner.