Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 323: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the requirements on Gardaí to take manual long-hand notes of interviews; and his views on whether the time has come to change such antiquated methods. [1702/07]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I have indicated in the past that I recognise the case made for dispensing with the taking of contemporaneous notes during interviews and for relying instead on electronic recording. I recognise, too, that this would give rise to a number of legal, operational and procedural issues.

In its third report (which I laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas on 18 March 2005), the Steering Committee on Audio and Audio/Video Recording of Garda Questioning of detained Persons examined this issue in some detail and recommended that current arrangements continue for the present. Factors considered by the Committee included the logistical challenge in making transcripts available at short notice, and checking their contents against the taped version, the resource implications of this, and the question of presentation of tapes in Court. Currently tapes are only played in court when there is a dispute about the written evidence presented. The Committee also thought it important, if there were to be a change to the Judges Rules dispensing with full contemporaneous notes, to assess any impact this might have on the conduct of criminal trials.

I acknowledge that any move away from the taking of contemporaneous notes would have to address these concerns. The existing regulations dealing with the electronic recording of interviews are now being revised, and in this context I have asked the Garda Commissioner for his views, from an operational policing perspective. I will take his views, and the final views of the Steering Committee, fully into account in my finalisation of the new regulations.