Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-26
============================================================

Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

I have lost my flow. Time is a construct. Very briefly, section 3 is most concerning to me. It is used and abused so much. You cannot take section 3 of the stop-and-search powers alone. Sections 2, 3, 15 and 23 of the drugs Act are obviously all inter-related, so when we mention them with regard to this Bill, it is hard not to take them as a suite of stop-and-search powers in relation to possession. I grew up in a community where we were stopped and searched daily, even as children. You began to run from the police even if you saw them just drive by, even though you had not done anything, as a form of resistance to being stopped and searched consistently and constantly, whether you were walking through a park or standing outside an estate. Apparently, if you are in a group of people in a community like mine, you are a gang. If you are a group of people in a community that is not overly policed, maybe you are just hitting a ball with a hurl or doing things as a group.
All of a sudden, when people come into a community like mine and they profile others in a perfect way, a group becomes a gang. People standing around together is not a gang but they get stopped and searched all of the time under this power.

---

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