Before I begin, I wish the Ceann Comhairle and her team a happy Christmas and a wonderful 2026 and the same to the Minister and the staff across the Oireachtas, who do such a brilliant job. I was not a member of the justice committee during the pre-legislative scrutiny that took place last year on the An Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill, but I have taken the time to examine it carefully, to read the report and compare it directly with what is now before the House. On the basis of that research, one thing is absolutely clear. The new and - let us be clear - intrusive elements of this Bill have not been subjected to proper scrutiny at all. That is what this is about. In the Minister's opening statement, he gave a very reasonable analysis of supporting gardaí and giving them additional powers to do their work and it is hard to argue against that. However, we are asking that the Minister give us the power to do our work, proper pre-legislative scrutiny, time for reflection, proper consideration across committees. That has not been done to this point. The pre-legislative scrutiny that took place in 2024 focused on facial recognition technology, specifically the identification of individuals by matching images of people against databases of known individuals. That is what the committee examined, what stakeholders were invited to comment on and what TDs were asked at that point to grapple with. It did not examine, because they had not been included, the new biometric analysis powers that are contained in this Bill. Those new elements are not minor, technical changes. They are a very significant expansion of State surveillance powers. Some of the items included in the Bill are the automated categorisation of people based on biometric data, the tracking of individuals across multiple images or video feeds, the ability to reconstruct people's movements based solely on how they look or move using algorithmic analysis and the use of AI systems to single people out in footage, even when their identity is unknown. Those are not cosmetic additions or the tidying up of drafting; they are new powers and they were never examined at pre-legislative scrutiny stage. Yet, here we are on Second Stage being asked to debate the principle of this Bill as though that scrutiny had taken place when it simply did not. That is not even close to good enough, nor is it an isolated incident in the area of justice over the past year. It has very much become a pattern. We saw it with the international protection Bill where legislation with profound implications for people's rights, legal safeguards and access to justice was pushed through at a pace, only for serious concerns to be raised repeatedly about its alignment with European law and fundamental rights standards. We were told then, as we are being told now, that urgency justified the shortcuts, that operational necessity outweighed the need for careful scrutiny, that safeguards could be dealt with later. Now with this Bill, we are seeing the very same approach again. Once more, we are being asked to legislate first and interrogate later and told that this will all be sorted out in codes of practice we have not seen. Once more, the detail, the safeguards, the limits and definitions are being deferred. This is not how good law is made. We have to be honest about how this Bill sits in the European context. The EU artificial intelligence, AI, Act is clear about biometric categorisation. It distinguishes between uses that are outright prohibited and uses that are permitted but classified as high risk, requiring stringent safeguards. It explicitly prohibits the use of biometric systems to infer sensitive personal characteristics. It warns about discrimination, profiling and disproportionate impacts on marginalised communities. That has been well interrogated by previous speakers. However, this Bill avoids the language of biometric categorisation altogether. It introduces the concept of biometric analysis without clearly defining its scope and fails to set out how these powers will be aligned with the EU AI Act's protections and obligations. This is eerily familiar to anyone who followed the international protection Bill pre-legislative scrutiny. That legislation had to be repeatedly defended by the Minister against claims that it did not properly align with European safeguards. We are once again legislating at the edge of compliance and trusting problems can be resolved later. People in this country absolutely want safer communities. We want to protect our gardaí and give them the powers they need. We want to see crime addressed and we all absolutely understand that. We empathise with it and share it. Communities living with antisocial behaviour, organised crime, intimidation and violence deserve action, not just rhetoric. We deserve more than bad law and bad scrutiny. Doing this properly should not be seen as optional. It is not an obstacle to safety. It is a prerequisite of it. Rushed legislation, weak safeguards and poorly scrutinised powers do not make communities safer in the long run. They undermine trust, expose the State to legal challenge and disproportionately impact people who already experience over-policing and under-protection. We have seen this before and we know how it plays out. I do not accept the idea that it is somehow inevitable that protecting human rights must come at the expense of public safety. That is a false choice. We can have strong Garda powers, meaningful accountability, clear legal thresholds, alignment with European law and public confidence, but we can only get there if we do the work. Frankly, it is not that hard to get this right. It requires a proper pre-legislative scrutiny of the new powers, clarity about what technologies are being authorised, transparency about how decisions are made and real safeguards against discrimination and misuse. What concerns me most is not just what is in the Bill, but how we arrived here. If justice legislation is repeatedly rushed, term after term, without full scrutiny, we will look back in years to come and ask ourselves how glaring gaps were allowed to pass unnoticed. We will ask how powers affecting rights were normalised without debate and how trust was eroded so quietly. No one in this House wants to see victims of crime let down, nor do we want to slow down legislation for the sake of it, but the way to honour victims is not through legislation that creates new risks while we do the minimum to address the structural causes of harm. I do not believe that surveillance powers introduced without scrutiny will deliver the safety people are crying out for or that legislation which risks discrimination, profiling and legal challenge will stand the test of time. These are not just risks. They have been documented already in other jurisdictions. Clearly, we can do better. We can legislate in ways that protects communities, supports gardaí, respects rights and aligns with European safeguards, but only if we stop treating scrutiny as an inconvenience and democracy as something to be rushed passed. For those reasons, I have very serious concerns about this Bill, not just in substance, but in process. I urge the Government to pause and reflect and allow this House to do its job properly before yet another justice Bill is passed with holes we will later regret. The Minister said we have to absorb technology. Nobody is disputing that. The process, however, requires time, engagement and the respect of parliamentarians to do our job on Committee Stage to scrutinise the legislation, make suggestions and see where there might be holes in it and to engage with stakeholders on the type of Bills that are coming before us now. That has not happened and we are engaged on what the contents are of the Bill that the Minister is asking us to speak on today.

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