Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-26 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South I thank Senators for their contributions. Senator McDowell referenced section 10, which is in Part 2 dealing with stop and search. Part 3 deals with search of a premises. Regarding the type of scenario that stop and search deals with, I am trying to give statutory powers and statutory limits to gardaí when they find themselves encountering the commission of an offence. The Senator referred specifically to section 10. It is about a power to search persons and vehicles for evidence of an offence. The section applies when a member of An Garda Síochána is in the public place or any other place authorised by law and has reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence has been, is being or is about to be committed. The Senator will be aware that when gardaí suspect a person is involved in the commission of a serious offence or there is an offence and they want to search their premises, they have to apply under Part 3. This arises when they are in a public place, there is a vehicle and there are persons in vehicles. It can arise in practical terms where an offence has been committed and the gardaí want to apprehend somebody who they think has been involved in the commission of the offence or the gardaí lawfully stop a car because they believe it is associated with the commission of an offence. Section 10(2) states that where this section applies, the member concerned may require a person to stop a vehicle for the purposes of enabling the member to ascertain whether any person in or accompanying the vehicle has committed, is committing or is about to commit the offence. Let us remember the offence is what is set out in Schedule 1. Senator McDowell is correct. There are a lot of serious offences but he is right that there is a theft offence there as well. I think it is appropriate that the Garda should have the power to require a person to stop a vehicle for the purpose of enabling it to ascertain whether the person in the vehicle, or somebody with them in the vehicle, has committed theft or is committing theft. That is a perfectly legitimate statutory provision the Oireachtas can absolutely stand over. The section also provides for enabling them to ascertain whether "evidence relating to the commission or intended commission of the offence by any person is in or on the vehicle or on any person in or accompanying it." Again, this is seeking evidence in respect of the commission or intended commission of the offence. I always listen very carefully to Senator McDowell but it is very adventurous of him to suggest that this could be availed of by a garda to stop a car on the basis that there is an offence being committed, but in fact that garda wants to get the notebook in the back seat because it belongs to a journalist. That is not what this statutory provision is about. It is about gardaí stopping a vehicle because they believe somebody has committed an offence or is in the process of committing an offence and that the car has relevant evidence, whether it be a weapon or a stolen item. It is not for the purpose of gardaí stopping a journalist's car a number of days or weeks after an event and saying, "We believe you have information in respect of the commission of an offence that has been committed or is about to be committed and we are going to seize your notebook". Even if that fanciful scenario did arise, the journalist still has appropriate constitutional protections because the journalist, much the same way as Senator McDowell successfully brought the case on behalf of Emmett Corcoran, would be able to say that this is an abuse of the statutory procedure, and that journalistic privilege is a right recognised under the European Convention and under the Constitution, which deserves to be and has been recognised by our courts. If the highly unlikely scenario that Senator McDowell suggests arose, there is still constitutional protection there for the journalist. Any invocation of such powers by a member of An Garda Síochána would clearly be an abuse of the statutory scheme, since it is apparent from Part 3 of the statutory scheme that journalistic privilege is protected. It is not just journalistic privilege; all privilege is protected and can be determined. That is my response to Senator McDowell. I will not go into detail in respect of what Senator Flaherty said. I will respond to him personally in due course because the issues he raised would take up too much time here. I will just say that morale in An Garda Síochána is very high at present and the Commissioner is doing an excellent job. To Senator Ruane's point, privilege screening is not an examination of each of the documents. Privilege screening is the limited examination of captured material for the sole purpose of identifying potentially privileged material without permitting a general analysis of the data for evidential purposes. This process is typically authorised by a judge when privileged material is likely to exist. The review is strictly confined to identifying the presence of such material. Beyond this no further examination is permitted. It is not looking at the content of the material. We talk about journalistic privilege here all the time. Legal professional privilege is also a form of privilege we should be appraising and considering. If there is a warrant to search a solicitor's premises, or a solicitor's mobile phone or email, and you are able to look to see whether there is correspondence between the solicitor and his or her client, that is the type of screening that would be done. You would not read the letter but if it is apparent there are communications between the solicitor and his client, which are clearly or probably protected by legal professional privilege, that is the purpose of the screening process. Again, I have to emphasise that we live in a society where people assert their rights. As was the case of Emmett Corcoran, the strong likelihood is that if the Garda seek to effect a search warrant on a person who claims that the material it is seizing has the benefit of journalistic privilege, then he or she will assert that and it will be asserted promptly before the court. This will then invoke section 24, which is the most important part in the determination of privilege because it sets out the very detailed procedure by which the High Court will determine claims to privilege. Just because a lawyer says, "That is legally privileged" or just because a person says, "I am a journalist and that is journalistic privilege" does not mean we all have to genuflect before it. There has to be an assessment of it and the way we assess it is that the High Court objectively looks at it. Obviously, it is taken into account whether somebody is a registered lawyer, for example, and has communications with the client. That clearly will get the benefit of legal professional privilege. Whether somebody is a journalist, a recognised journalist involved in investigative journalism or whatever type of journalism, is where it gets difficult in terms of defining what a journalist is because it can be very vague. People like those Senator McDowell was talking about would then seek to avail of it, but the courts know what journalistic privilege is when they see it and there is a mechanism here for the first time in statute to recognise that privilege. --- 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/2026-05-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-26