This is the seventh year I have showed up to vote for something which I profoundly disagree with. I believe fully in a trial by jury. Ordinary citizens should be able to sit in judgment. When the State accuses somebody of a serious crime, one of the strongest protections we possess is the right to be judged by our peers. Yet, seven years in a row I have voted for something I disagree with. This year and last year, I have also been very conscious that if I was to take a stand and say I will not vote for it this time, I do not believe this Government and this State have the capacity to project jurors. That is a sad indictment of the system and a continuity of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments which have left us showing up and reaffirming a collective belief that the ordinary courts of this State are inadequate. That is not hyperbole; it is provided for in Article 38.3.1 of the Constitution which allows for juryless courts in the scenario that "ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice, and the preservation of public peace and order." That is effectively what we do every single year. We show up and say our ordinary courts are inadequate for the administration of justice. That should shame us all. As we talk about the various reforms and reviews such as the Hederman review in 2002 and the Peart minority and majority review, we describe the belief that our courts are not good enough to try the people who appear before the Special Criminal Court. That should be something we all take stock of. It is not a form of strength or a tough-on-crime position to try the worst of the worst in the Special Criminal Court. It is actually a concession; it concedes ground to these people who try to actively instil fear in communities like mine and yours that we do not believe the ordinary courts of this State are adequate or the State has a monopoly on violence for which we protect jurors within the State. That is a sad indictment on all of us. Every year this House renews these powers, we acknowledge inadequacy. This is no longer 1972 or the darkest year of the Troubles; it is 2026. The people who have been responsible for our judicial system the entire time are solely Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. The report laid before the House today tells us how many cases were tried in Special Criminal Courts last year and the year before. One of the things it does not tell us is why the Special Criminal Court was deemed the appropriate court to try these individuals. I do not doubt for a second that some of the people who come before the court, recently and potentially in the future, are vicious criminals who would try to undermine our Judiciary and try to intimidate jurors and their families. All of that is absolutely true but nobody stops and tells me why we do not have the capacity within the State to prescribe the types of protections there are in other jurisdictions. We are an outlier. The Irish State is an outlier in the sense that we do not provide safety for our jurors. In Italy they have dealt with this with the Mafia. Lots of other jurisdictions have dealt with this. Ireland is really only comparable to Denmark at the moment. Everywhere else seems to make allowances in exceptional cases but we are saying that this exception is now becoming the norm. Last year, the Minister said that he believed in the Peart majority report. I would disagree but where are we in terms of the actual legislation? There is an element of basic cowardice here that we continue to renew the Special Criminal Court without justifying the inadequacies of the Government and State as to why we cannot protect ourselves, or what we are bringing in with regard to reform. I would like to see that soon.

Sentiment score: -0.15