Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-02
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

The amendments that I put forward were simply looking for the public to know how these powers operate. The Minister said that this is a substantive change to the system. It is a new system. It is perfectly legitimate that we would ask about the new system. The Minister is leaning on the past but telling us there is a substantive change and the past system is outdated. If it is a substantive change, as the Minister described it, and a new system, it is legitimate that we would say we should make it transparent.
The Minister is saying that this measure is to put it on a statutory basis so that the public and the State know what is happening, but we will just know that the Minister will know things. We will not know the conditions that are attached to the approval of decisions. There is no guarantee of those being published or us knowing what they are. The case or classes of assistance and statistic information that is produced by the Defence Forces may happen under the current "old" regime, to include the reasons why the C70 was issued and granted and so forth. If we have a new system that the Minister is putting in place, where the Minister is designating classes of assistance, why should the list of those classes of assistance not be published? The Minister tells us that the Defence Forces' report may include it. No, the Defence Forces' report included the old system, under the C70s. The Minister is introducing a new system with ministerial power to designate certain categories and classes of assistance where the Army may be deployed. We simply asked him to publish them. That is not something to which the Minister is agreeing.
Amendment No. 21 is similar. It proposes that if the Minister is introducing a new class of assistance, he should update and publish a list. The thing is that what people use armies for changes. The following is a slightly different example but it is a time I remember. We debated Operation Sophia in the Seanad. Government Member after Government Member stood to say they were proud of the Navy because of what it was doing on search and rescues. I am incredibly proud of the Navy because of what it does in search and rescue. However, what the Minister was saying was that the Navy was moving from a primarily humanitarian focus to a primarily security focus. What was happening was that we were being told to look at the past and all the great things we did, and making that the rationale for voting for the new power, but under the new system the Navy stopped doing search and rescue. It joined Operation Sophia and moved to a security function and the Navy started to be used primarily for security functions in the Mediterranean Sea rather than search and rescue. That is just an example. It is, I know, a different one, but it is an example that shows us that we need to look at what is in front of us and not lean on what was done in the past and all the wonderful examples of that. We need to look at the proper structure of accountability for the new, substantive changes to the system, as the Minister has described them.
That again brings us to the class or classes of assistance and the kinds of conditions that are attached. Most crucial, as I say, is the question of the guidelines for directions so there is an understanding for the public. The Minister says he is looking to provide transparency for the public but the public is being told that we are going to have guidelines; full stop. We are simply asking the Minister to publish the guidelines. Do not just develop guidelines but publish them. If it is the case that the Minister wants to put everything on a clearer basis, have more transparency and a statutory basis for all these things so we all know how and why they are happening, let us actually know how and why, and under what conditions and with what guidelines, they are happening. My three amendments straightforwardly looked for elements that are already going to happen under the new system, as the Minister has described it, to be published and to be publicly available information. I do not understand why those amendments are not being accepted.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02