Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I also believe that the answer I provided was sufficient to answer the queries that she raised. The Senator talked about the proposed amendments to section 43C. As she will be aware, the primary amendment I am putting forward here is to include a new paragraph in section 43C(2). It provides that a member of Garda personnel shall not carry out biometric analysis other than for one of the following purposes, and the new purpose I am putting in is where it is necessary for co-operation with one or more other law enforcement agencies in relation to the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences. In that instance, a query may come from another international law enforcement agency in respect of a missing person or perhaps a child who has perhaps has been criminally assaulted in terms of child sexual abuse material on the Internet. That is one context in terms of how it may arise. In the alternative, there may be a desire on the part of An Garda Síochána to find out information in respect of a child victim in terms of child sexual abuse material or a missing person in Ireland or both. There has to be international co-operation between the police force in Ireland and international police forces.
When it comes to the purpose of biometric analysis, the new purpose I want to put in is to facilitate that co-operation. It does not necessitate or require that the other country or police force that is requesting co-operation specifies whether they are coming to us pursuant to biometric identification or seeking other information derived from a database. This would be a query arising from another international police force or a query made by the Garda to that police force in respect of an individual whose image is on a piece of video footage. The Garda is using the analysis power that it has under this legislation to try to filter, sort out or rule out individuals in terms of the persons, whether or not it is a missing person, information for which has been provided by another police force, or whether or not it is a person who has been the subject of sexual abuse online and there is co-operation in that regard. There has to be an ability for the Garda exercising these powers to do so for the purpose of ensuring that it is providing co-operation to or seeking co-operation from other international agencies.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23