Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not believe that this is particularly the case. For instance, under the road traffic legislation, the mere fact that a person may have a controlled drug like a steroid in his or her bloodstream does not automatically mean that he or she is committing an offence. These matters are provided for by statute. The point that worries me somewhat is a very simple one. When I was Minister for Justice, I remember the Attorney General telling the Cabinet that there could not simply be random tests of motorists, that there had to be a preordained pattern of checkpoints. We could not simply let a member of An Garda Síochána put his or her hand up, stop a motorist on a random basis and ask the motorist to provide a sample. There had to be a regime. One of the things that I am interested to hear is whether it is intended to have spot-tests. Is it the case that everybody in the platoon provides a urine sample or does there have to be s suspicion regarding an individual? Is it random and members A, C, D and E are told to step forward as they have been selected on a random basis to provide a blood test, urine test or hair sample? Are we going to introduce the random testing of soldiers or is it anticipated that it will be done in circumstances such as where there is a reason to suspect that a member of the Defence Forces is in fact abusing drugs? That is a fairly important question relating to the operability of this proposal. If it is to be random, I am not particularly against that. Airline pilots, for very good reason, are subject to random testing regimes. We should should be reasonably sure that people who are given lethal firearms in the Defence Forces are not also, in certain cases, snorting cocaine to the extent that they are a danger to themselves, others or their colleagues, for that matter.

This is a very wide-ranging power that is being given to the Minister. I want to see the policies involved. Is there to be random spot-testing of members of the Defence Forces purely on a surprise basis or is it to be different? Going back to my own experience as a Minister, I remember governors of prisons were very sceptical about random tests of prisoners because they did not want to know the terrible truth, to be honest. In the Defence Forces, it is far more serious than that. I want some indication of the policy that will underlie the regulations to be brought out under this provision if it becomes law.