Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Ward. The Senator made many of my responses and clarified them.

From the outset, we have not defined either "security of the State" or "threat to the security of the State" anywhere. If one thinks of the most recent legislation, the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act, which we re-enacted only in the past few weeks, in that there is no clear definition of "security of the State" or "threat to the security of the State". We have a situation where the courts interpret it. I would be of the view of Senator Ward that if one were to define something, the minute something arises that does not fit within that definition one finds oneself in a difficult situation.

If I could, to be helpful, I will give an indication of the type of issues that I would view as linked to the concepts of "threat to the security of the State". They may include: the terrorist threat level in the jurisdiction and on the island, bearing in mind the operational focus on preventing or disrupting attacks in Northern Ireland; the terrorist threat level in the wider neighbourhood - Britain and the EU - which is informed by assessments carried out by either the UK agencies or Europol; hostile state activity; cyberthreats to the State; the threat that might be posed by right-wing extremist groups; and the potentially destabilising effect on society of organised crime. These are all the types of potential definitions that one might have or that have been ruled on previously in a court by a judge but, as has been said previously by Senator Ward, to define it one leaves oneself open to excluding something from the overall definition.

Given the fact that we have not defined it in any legislation, I am not sure I would be comfortable with defining "security of the State" in an emergency Bill, particularly when I suppose the intention here is to respond to the court ruling. To assure the Senators, I have been given clear advice from the Attorney General on this. The Attorney General is absolutely satisfied with what we have included and that this replicates how we have not defined it, so to speak, but have referred to it in other legislation. If we were to go beyond that, an emergency Bill is not really the place to do it.

While I fully understand where both Senators are coming from, I will not be able to accept this amendment for those reasons.