I welcome the opportunity to speak on this but it is a bit of a charade. It is my 16th year here and year after year, we come in here and it is renewed by Government. The Offences against the State Act was first introduced in 1939. There was an emergency then; there was the Second World War. The fact is that this is renewed annually now, 89 years later. That is a cause of great concern. Numerous legal practitioners and the UN human rights committee, Amnesty International, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties have all called for repeal or substantial reform of this legislation. The Government commission report by Justice Hederman in 2002, and more recently the Government’s report of 2023, recommended changes, including the non-jury dimension. As I said, this is my 16th year for this. It should never be dealt with in this way. Emergency legislation is emergency legislation. I have stated before and I do so again, that the Offences against the State Act was at times used for political purposes. That is a fact. Refusal to answer loaded questions should never be used as a method of implying guilt, nor should the conduct of the accused during interrogation or at other times or by association. They have the potential to be abused, as has the word of a Garda superintendent. The Minister of State’s party trumpets - I was a supporter of it, maybe a reluctant supporter - the Good Friday Agreement, which referred to the Offences against the State Act. The Government stated it was committed to initiating "a wide-ranging review of the Offences against the State Acts [1939] with a view to both reform and dispensing with those elements no longer required as circumstances permit." It is a different world now than 1939 or indeed 1970 or 1980. The Minister for justice said last year that: "The main reason I believe the Act should be repealed is that the threats the State faces today...have reduced and significantly altered." I agree. Is it not time to confine this legislation to the history books or the dustbin? While there is a problem with organised crime, there needs to be adequate legislation for that. There are suggestions around that. There is technology and methods for protecting witnesses. I understand organised crime and drugs cartels are a challenge for everybody, but all of those options should be utilised and we should confine this legislation to the history books. I hope we are not here next year. I welcome the Minister of State as a new Minister and wish her well in her job, but I hope we are not here around this date next year, renewing this outdated, draconian legislation. It has been abused in the past, I am not saying always, but it certainly has been used for political purposes and that has no place in the Ireland of 2026.

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