Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 395: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his plans to introduce new pretrial procedures to deal with admissibility of evidence, to save overtime and the time of jurors and the court; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40052/08]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 398: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform when he will introduce procedures in order that the defence should provide the prosecution with a list of intended witnesses and put structures in place to ensure that the prosecution is on notice of the points of defence raised by the defence in advance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40055/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 395 and 398 together.

The Deputy's Questions refer to Government commitments regarding the conduct of and procedures relating to criminal trials. The issues raised by these commitments were considered by the Balance in the Criminal Law Review Group, which reported in March 2007 to the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. In considering the disposal of admissibility issues pre-trial, the Review Group recommended that legislation be introduced to provide that admissibility issues should be determined prior to the swearing in of a jury. The Group considered that the present arrangement whereby a jury is sworn in before any admissibility issue is determined is illogical and inconvenient on a number of levels and is based on historical considerations which no longer apply.

The Deputy will be aware that a considerable disparity exists between the advance disclosure obligations of the defence and prosecution counsel in criminal cases. The prosecution is required to set out the precise details of the case they will seek to present and the conclusions which it will attempt to prove. The defence, in contrast, is not required to furnish any such information, with certain exceptions such as alibi evidence under Section 20 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, witness information required under the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 and evidence regarding the mental state of the accused under Section 19 of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006.

The Review Group considered a range of options regarding defence statements, including models based on UK law. The Group concluded that, having regard to the difficulties of moving to a defence statement regime, the obligation on additional disclosure should be limited to expert and technical reports and witness statements of experts on which the defendant intends to rely. These recommendations of the Review Group are being considered by my Department. I am also awaiting the outcome of the Law Reform Commission's review of these matters, as part of its Third Programme of Law Reform.