Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-26
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Sharon Keogan (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I thank my colleague Senator Sarah O'Reilly for putting down this amendment. I will speak to the grouping, which addresses a clear and important gap in the Bill as it currently stands. At the outset, I will say that I am not approaching these amendments from a position of hostility to Garda investigations. I fully accept that there will be circumstances where journalistic material is relevant to serious criminal inquiries. These amendments do not seek to block investigations but to ensure that when the State interferes with journalistic material, it does so in a way that is careful, proportionate and consistent with long-established constitutional and European principles.
Amendment No. 3, which introduces a definition of "journalistic privilege", is a modest but necessary starting point. The Bill already contains detailed provisions on legal professional privilege but it is largely silent on journalistic privilege. This is despite the fact that Irish courts and the European Court of Human Rights have repeatedly recognised the protection of journalistic sources as a corner-stone of any democratic society. If we value freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it makes sense to recognise that explicitly on the face of the legislation.
Amendments Nos. 30 to 33, inclusive, give practical effect to that principle. They do not create an absolute shield for journalists. Instead, they require applications for search warrants involving journalistic material to be made on notice and heard inter partes by default unless genuinely exceptional circumstances exist. That strikes me as a reasonable and balanced approach.
To put it plainly, searching a journalist's phone, laptop or files is not the same as searching an ordinary premises. Journalists routinely hold unpublished material, communications and information that, if exposed, could have a chilling effect well beyond the individual case in question. A simple hypothetical illustrates this point. Let us say a journalist is investigating alleged wrongdoing by a powerful organisation and An Garda Síochána believes some material held by that journalist may be relevant to the investigation of an offence. Without these amendments, a warrant could be sought and executed without the journalist being heard. By the time the journalist becomes aware of it, confidential sources may already have been exposed. Even if no charges follow, the damage cannot be undone. These amendments introduce an essential pause for judicial scrutiny. Where applications proceed without notice, An Garda Síochána is required to explicitly draw the court's attention to constitutional protection, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the requirement for necessity and proportionality. That does not weaken policing. It strengthens oversight and decision-making.
These amendments sit particularly well in the context of the expanded digital powers provided for elsewhere in the Bill. As we have already discussed, modern devices collapse vast amounts of information into a single place. A journalist's device may contain years of work on multiple investigations and numerous sources that are entirely unrelated to the matter under inquiry. Without safeguards of this kind, journalistic privilege risks being recognised in theory but eroded in practice.
This is also about public confidence. A free press does not exist for the benefit of journalists alone. It exists for the benefit of the public. If sources believe that speaking to journalists carries an undue risk of exposure through routine policing powers, fewer people will come forward and matters of genuine public interest may never reach daylight. Supporting these amendments does not create a caste of people who are above the law. It recognises that certain forms of State power can have consequences far beyond the immediate investigation if exercised without sufficient care. For those reasons, I will be supporting this group of amendments. They strengthen both the Bill and the constitutional values it should reflect.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-26