Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the idea of preventing people from picketing the homes of Members of the Oireachtas because they are their homes and Members are entitled to the same privacy that anybody else is at their home. It struck me that way back in 1994, a Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act was passed which provides in section 5:

(1) It shall be an offence for any person in a public place to engage in offensive conduct— (a) between the hours of 12 o'clock midnight and 7 o'clock in the morning next following, or

(b) at any other time, after having been requested by a member of the Garda Síochána to desist. (2) A person who is guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £500.

(3) In this section “offensive conduct” means any unreasonable behaviour which, having regard to all the circumstances, is likely to cause serious offence or serious annoyance to any person who is, or might reasonably be expected to be, aware of such behaviour.

In one sense, that is very near to what is proposed here, namely, that if people congregate outside somebody's house in significant numbers and in a manner calculated to cause offence or annoyance to the person residing there, it is already an offence. Perhaps we should tweak that offence to extend it to causing fear or serious interference with the capacity of the person to enjoy their own property, something like that.

I am a bit worried about the exact phraseology of the Bill. I know it is only tendered to get the debate going. On the idea of 200 yd from the residence, where I live, the entire of Ranelagh centre would be a picket-free zone if this was passed in its present state. The other thing is that it does not apply to urban areas where virtually every home of anybody for any purpose is within 200 yards of somewhere else. The 200-yd limit is probably a bit impractical. We do have to protect public representatives from intimidatory picketing of their own private residences. They are entitled constitutionally to the protection of the inviolability of the dwelling. How is someone's dwelling inviolable if people are entitled to surround it and make it inaccessible or intimidating to be within it? There is a constitutional argument that supports the idea of protecting the privacy of individuals' homes.

I welcome the principle of this legislation although it should be tweaked to make sure it is not too extensive in its potential ambit. How that should be done is the important point. I listened to a person from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, on the radio today talking about it. I fully accept that there is a constitutional right to freely assemble, subject to public order and morality. However, there is also the constitutional right to the inviolability of one's dwelling. What good is a right of inviolability of one's dwelling if it only means that people cannot smash the door down? That to me is a very narrow interpretation. Access to one's dwelling and the capacity to enjoy its amenity is also a constitutionally protected right, not to mention the unenumerated right of privacy and the right of other persons using the home who are not party to any dispute or whatever to enjoy their home as well.

I commend the Senator and his colleagues for tendering this legislation. I ask the Minister of State to look at the public order legislation that is already there, and the constitutional right to the inviolability of the dwelling in the context of privacy rights under the Constitution, and to come up with a response to this Private Members' Bill which adequately deals with the issue.I am getting a bit wary of 200 m exclusion zones. Now we have 200 m zones where one cannot put an advertisement for drink within 200 m of a creche and all sorts of crazy propositions. It is interesting that one cannot advertise for a drink within 200 m of a creche but one can have a mass picket outside a politician's home. That seems to be a strange legal arrangement that we have arrived at.

I commend the Senator for his industry in bringing this Bill forward, but we need to fine tune it to get it absolutely right and we want to build on existing precedent. I will finish on this, but the point is that the section I referred to requires the attendance of a member of An Garda Síochána to tell them to desist. We cannot have a situation where one can do whatever one likes until the Garda turn up and then one has to comply and disperse at that stage. The damage is done to the family by the time that happens. I am interested to hear what the Minister of State proposes to do in response to this valuable piece of draft legislation.