I move amendment No. 1: To insert the following after "ending on 29th June, 2027": "; and — calls on the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration to bring forward legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the Independent Review Group without further delay.". Tá díomá orm go bhfuil muid ag filleadh ar ais arís anseo ag athnuachan cumhachtaí éigeandála agus reachtaíochta atá as dáta. Ba cheart go ndéileálfadh an Rialtas leis seo roimhe seo. It is disappointing that we are back here once again renewing emergency powers and outdated legislation. Promised proposals on this matter have not been delivered and it seems that Government is either incapable or unwilling to deliver them. Not only has there not been any progress, the prospect of movement to implement the proposals of the independent review seems further away than ever. When the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, who, for the second year in a row, is not here to discuss this motion, first came into office we were told to expect some proposals to be brought forward by the end of last year. When I asked again recently by way of parliamentary question, no indicative timetable could be given. In the Minister of State's speech, she left it until the very end and, within that, there were just two paragraphs where there was any reference to the independent report that was commissioned by the Government at a large expense to the taxpayer. Now, she is saying that the Minister will return in due course. It is as clear as absolute mud. I am beginning to wonder if the Minister has any intention of dealing with this issue during his term of office. That is why it is disappointing that we are back here once again renewing provisions in an Act which we know, because the expert committee we established told us so, should have been replaced a long time ago. Last year, the Government belatedly acknowledged that the offences against the State legislation had to be overhauled, but it is three years now since the publication of the independent review on the Offences Against the State Acts that was chaired by Mr. Justice Michael Peart. There has been absolutely no progress in the time since. In fact, we have probably moved backwards over the past 12 months. To remind the House, the independent review group publication in 2023 recommended that the Offences Against the State Act be abolished in its entirety, with a majority recommending that a new non-jury court replace the Special Criminal Court to try serious criminal offences for which a threshold has been reached. Sinn Féin has repeatedly called for the proposals of this report to be implemented and for legislation to be brought forward. As the Government has not acted and shows no sign that it is going to act, I wish to inform the House that I, along with my colleague, Deputy Mark Ward, will be introducing a Bill complied in conjunction with the OPLA to compel the Government to act on the independent review. That the Offences Against the State Acts are outdated is undisputed. That emergency legislation should not be used on an ongoing basis is without question. Just think about what we do here. On an annual basis, we renew emergency legislation. We have been doing that for decades. We need a modern legal framework to effectively address organised crime and to properly protect jurors. There are serious issues in relation to organised crime that our courts and gardaí must be empowered to tackle. We are all in agreement on that. Recently, we have seen activities in respect of the Kinahan gang. We saw the recent incident involving a Swedish contract killer who died in Limerick. We need a sophisticated modern legal system to deal with organised crime, not outdated legislation that needs to be renewed on an annual basis. These are circumstances and situations that bear no relation to the situation when the legislation was first introduced. We are approaching 90 years since the Offences Against the State Act was initially introduced. The legislation has moved significantly from its original intention. These emergency power legislations were expanded with the creation of the Special Criminal Court in 1972 and then further expansions of the Act in 1998 following the Omagh bomb. The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act 2009 was enacted to put in place certain additional legislative measures to tackle organised crime. What we have had is successive Governments repeatedly dragging their feet on dealing with this issue, despite that there is widespread criticism, both domestically and internationally,of the continuation of the Offences Against the State Acts. Logically, the time to deal with this would have been in the immediate aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. Many would have expected it to be the case. To remind Members of the House what the Good Friday Agreement said, specifically referencing the use of emergency legislation, it said that the Irish Government will "initiate a wide-ranging review of the Offences against the State Acts with a view to both reform and dispensing with those elements no longer required as circumstances permit". Following the Good Friday Agreement, the Hederman committee chaired by a former Supreme Court justice conducted a review of the Offences Against the State Act published in August 2002. Its recommendations included new legislation and the repeal of existing legislation. Does that sound familiar? That was in 2002; here we are in 2026 and of course those recommendations were never implemented. That is the crux of the problem. There is little confidence based on the track record and on the Minister of State's statement today that the Government will actually deal with this issue. There is a real concern with the level of delay and inaction we have seen that the independent review will similarly end up on a shelf somewhere to be cited in 20 years' time by whoever replaces us in these Houses if there is a continuation of the go-slow Governments we have had to date. In our submission to the independent review of the Offences Against the State Act, Sinn Féin called for a number of things, specifically, an end to the Offences Against the State Act, an end to emergency legislation and the replacement of the current Special Criminal Court with a new, non-jury human rights-compliant system. The independent review group recommended that the Offences Against the State Act be abolished in its entirety with a majority recommending a new non-jury trial replace the Special Criminal Court to trial serious offences for which a threshold has been reached. It is unacceptable we are not seeing any movement on the implementation of these proposals. I have said, and I will repeat, I want to work constructively with the Minister on this but we can only do that if we get some movement or real clarity of intention on the part of the Minister. We in Sinn Féin have argued that the legislation should stipulate that the courts be provided with the power to decide on whether a non-jury trial should take place rather than the DPP as proposed in the majority report. The Special Criminal Court was criticised by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2001. Central to that criticism was the failure of the Irish Government to demonstrate that the decision of the DPP to certify that the applicant be tried by the Special Criminal Court was based on reasonable and objective grounds. The UN committee also pointed to the fact that the DPP was under no obligation to provide reasons for its decision. It is my view and Sinn Féin's that the legislation to give effect to the independent review should also include a higher bar than what was recommended in the majority report for a non-jury trial. The legislation should include a requirement of evidence of real and present danger that jury tampering would take place. Jury tampering is often cited as the reason for special courts. While it is a real concern, the argument is a little hollow if no action is taken to protect juries. The right to a trial by jury should be protected except in exceptional circumstances. To protect that fundamental right, we need to protect jurors. The Law Reform Commission in 2013 recommended a number of steps that could be taken to give greater protection to juries, including the creation of a stand-alone offence of jury tampering. In our submission to the independent review group, Sinn Féin called for the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission in relation to the protection of jurors to be implemented and the practices of other jurisdictions to be examined with a view to adopting the best practice in line with international standards to protect juries. The independent review group on the Offences Against the State Act also called for this to be done. There is no reason for ongoing delays in doing so. I would like to see the Minister bring forward proposals on this issue in line with what the Law Reform Commission and the independent review group proposed. The debate on the motions before the Dáil today do not take place in a vacuum. While robust legislation is required to deal with the threat of modern, sophisticated organised crime, as I said earlier, the battle against such criminals starts in the community and on our streets. The criminal justice system must be adequately resourced and equipped to tackle organised crime. In addition to the failure to deal with the issue of the Offences Against the State Act since taking office, the Minister has done very little to deal with the recruitment and retention crisis in the Garda. The failure to tackle this crisis means we simply do not have enough gardaí for crucial tasks which are the bedrock of crime prevention such as community policing. Interventions to prevent young people being dragged into crime, investing in communities and diversion and putting enough community gardaí on our streets are all equally important. We know young people who get involved in organised crime are often groomed to be involved at a very young age. Preventable intervention at this age is crucial. We also need to ensure we have proper garda visibility in all communities. What we have seen since the Minister, Deputy Jim' O'Callaghan, took office can give us very little confidence that the long-overdue overhaul of the Offences Against the State Act will be acted upon. If we are to take the Minister of State's speech today, this Government has no intention of moving on this area. The Government should be held to account to ensure the recommendations of the independent review group are implemented without further delay. That is why I tabled an amendment to the motions. I urge all Members of this House to support the Sinn Féin amendment. In time, Sinn Féin will introduce legislation to force the Government to act. When talking about the Special Criminal Court and Offences Against the State Act, it is noteworthy that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Sallins case. It is way beyond time the people involved in that case received the truth and justice for which they have been campaigning for the past five decades.

Sentiment score: -0.08

The Minister of State need not have bothered.

Sentiment score: 0.24