Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 5 of the Bill empowers the Garda Síochána to direct individuals so as to prevent an offence under this Bill occurring and grants significant latitude in that regard. If the Bill is passed in its current form, gardaí will have full discretion to break up and end any assembly near a safe access zone, as they need only suspect that a person intends to stray into such a zone to clamp down. It will then be an offence for any person to fail to comply with a direction to leave a vicinity without reasonable cause. I would be grateful for the words "reasonable cause" if this were a practical guideline that one could follow, but it is not. How are ordinary persons supposed to know where they stand if gardaí attempt to break up their demonstration? If a protester in this scenario were to disobey gardaí on foot of what he or she views as a reasonable cause or a reasonable excuse, the protester might potentially have to go through a costly and mentally taxing criminal trial before he or she could be acquitted of wrongdoing.

Under this Bill, law-abiding demonstrators can be compelled, under duress, to forgo their right to protest. It is not just those who are opposed to abortion who are threatened by this legislation. Section 3 of the Bill prohibits both demonstrators who support and demonstrators who oppose a person's decision to access abortion services. If this Bill passes, demonstrators campaigning against church ownership of the national maternity hospital could all be arrested and prosecuted if they disobeyed a Garda order to move outside a 100 m safe access zone. The campaigners for this cause recently picketed outside Dáil Éireann. They had previously demonstrated outside the National Maternity Hospital and St. Vincent's University Hospital. It is ironic that a Bill designed to criminalise those seeking to protect the right to life could end up being used against those who campaign against abortion restrictions. It is a naive voice, indeed, that trumpets in support of censorship while it is in power, not seeing that it is undermining its own freedoms as it does so.

If a member of An Garda Síochána sees a crime committed under this Bill, he or she can arrest the person. The garda does not need any additional powers to direct people as it is already an offence not to follow the order of a member of An Garda Síochána. This section follows the style of the rest of the Bill. It is over-reaching, unnecessary and not thought through. It should be removed.