Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2023-12-12
============================================================

Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

I move amendment No. 29:
In page 42, between lines 33 and 34, to insert the following:
“(3) A person who does or omits to do anything that, if the inquiry were a court of law having the power to punish for contempt, would be contempt of such court, is guilty of an offence and is liable, on summary conviction, to a class C fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or both.”.
During the Dáil debates on this Bill, it was noted that the sections providing for judicial inquiries lacked any penalties for non-compliance with the rulings of the judge in such inquiries. While the original intention of the Bill was that the common law powers of a judge could be used to enforce such penalties, I am now advised that such powers can only be used when a judge is sitting in a court. They are not applicable to these types of judicial inquiries. The Attorney General has now advised that express provision should be made for such penalties for non-compliance with an inquiry. I want to acknowledge Deputies Ó Ríordáin and Howlin for flagging this particular issue. Accordingly, these amendments make it an offence for a person to do or to omit to do anything that, if the inquiry were a court of law, would be considered contempt of such a court.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2023-12-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-12-12