Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have huge respect for the Minister and the task at hand. Usually when I hear people's reasoning and logic I go back and forth in my head exploring the issue and ask if they are right. When I hear the Minister speak, however, I do not feel any confidence that a balance has been struck as regards how communication is received. We are putting a hierarchy on how somebody receives information and communication as a mechanism for balancing constitutional rights. Somewhere in the conversation that happens, a greater value is placed on in-person verbal communication than written communication in conveying something. If all communication is language and the sharing of information, who decides which is more valuable in respect of a constitutional matter? It comes down to how we receive and how we are given information. On the issue of mandatory in-person communication, or whatever we want to call it, anything beyond privacy rights actually hinges on a form of control or a form of removing someone else's agency in how they do or do not wish to receive communication.

When it comes to language, communication and information, I do not understand how a Government or Attorney General decides that the balance between them is a right because it is the same information no matter how it is received. It seems there is a paternalistic aspect to this, where the person on the end of the phone, or the person in the room, somehow has some sort of magic power to know that this message has been better conveyed because it was said verbally than if it was received in written form. It is as if there has to be a burden of proof if someone is on the phone asking, "Do you understand what I am saying?" How do we make an assessment that conveying something verbally is better? It is about the State and the agencies having control over being able to hear someone's voice, witness someone's face, and somehow make the determination that they have better conveyed or better balanced someone's rights rather than basing it on just sending them a letter.

I would love to understand why the hierarchy of how information is communicated, and who decides that something is conveyed, balances a constitutional right based on how information is given. There had to have been a debate on written communication, verbal communication and telephone communication, and why one of them is of more value than the others in balancing constitutional rights.