Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 16, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 4B of Act of 1967

14.Section 4B of the Act of 1967 is amended in subsection (1)(a), by the insertion of the following new subparagraph after subparagraph (ii):

“(iii) in the case of an offence that may be tried on indictment only, the prosecutor directs that the accused should be sent forward for trial, or”.”.

This is a proposal to amend section 4B of the Criminal Procedure Act 1967, a very important provision which relates to the service of a book of evidence or, essentially, a collection of documents, on an accused person in the District Court before he or she is sent forward to a trial court of indictment. The reason I am proposing this amendment to include a third subparagraph is that the section currently relates only to matters where directions of the DPP are required. For example, in what are commonly referred to as hybrid offences, where a person can be tried summarily or on indictment before a judge and jury, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions must, in the first instance, provide directions as to what it wants to happen with the case, in other words, whether it is happy for it to go forward on indictment. The difficulty arises in respect of certain cases that are indictable only. It would appear that section 4B makes no provision for such cases and, consequently, the time limits. The time limits are very important because there is a 42-day time limit built into the legislation, which means that accused persons do not languish in the District Court while waiting to get into the indictable court. That time limit does not apply to people accused of indictable only offences such as murder or certain firearms offences, section 4 assault or whatever it might be. The reality is that such persons do not benefit from the protections of section 4B or the time limits. I suggest we change that to include a subparagraph 3 which will state: "in the case of an offence that may be tried on indictment only, the prosecutor directs that the accused should be sent forward for trial, or". It includes a subparagraph which includes those offences that are currently left out by section 4B.

I would also suggest that in making this amendment we do not in any way prejudice the prosecution because the District Court judge, whoever he or she may be, has a very wide discretion to extend the time where it is in the interests of justice to do so. Therefore, the DPP loses nothing by this.

In addition, even if the District Court judge was to decide to strike out the matter, there is no dismissal with prejudice and it is still open to the DPP to re-enter the matter. This is an amendment to include a cadre of offences currently admitted and, therefore, to afford the protections available to people who are charged with hybrid offences to people who are charged with more serious offences.