Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-05-13 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South I thank Deputy Carthy for these two amendments. We had an opportunity on Committee Stage to have a discussion on these amendments as well, but the Deputy is perfectly entitled to submit them again. As the Leas-Ceann Comhairle will be aware, the purpose of this legislation is to provide a facility for An Garda Síochána to engage in retrospective biometric analysis in terms of the work that it does and in terms of trying to speed up investigations for the purpose of identifying missing persons or locating individuals in a crowd when there is a large amount of CCTV footage. That is the primary purpose of this legislation. What the Deputy is seeking to do is to put into primary legislation rules on procurement. In particular, he wants to rule out An Garda Síochána entering into contracts with certain companies that are based in countries that have been adjudicated to have been involved in crimes against humanity or genocide. As I have said previously, however, procurement is governed by EU rules and national regulations and my view today is the same as it was when this matter came before us on Committee Stage, in that it would be inappropriate to duplicate these restrictions in primary legislation. There are mandatory exclusion grounds where a tenderer has been convicted of one or more of the following offences: participation in a criminal organisation; corruption; fraud; terrorist offences or offences linked to terrorist activities; money laundering or terrorist financing; child labour; human trafficking-related offences; and the breach of tax or social security obligations. Public procurement rules and regulations provide for a transparent, non-discriminatory process and there are sufficient rules and regulations in place in respect of existing guidelines. Procurement matters generally would not be a matter to be addressed in this Bill. In the case of any procurement of biometric technologies, there are requirements for providers and deployers of AI systems under the AI Act and An Garda Síochána will look to its European counterparts when engaging in the procurement process for best practice in the area. I am satisfied that the Garda will seek to advance ethical considerations when it comes to procurement processes as well. Deputy Carthy is seeking to target Israel because of the war crimes committed by it in Gaza and elsewhere. I agree with him when he says that this State, through its Government, has stood up to the criminal genocide in Gaza. That is correct. Obviously, it has resulted in Israel having a negative view of Ireland on the basis that we are standing up for what we believe is a rules-based international system and ensuring we have an orderly resolution of disputes. Nonetheless, having said that, it would be inappropriate to include rules in respect of procurement in primary legislation. For that reason, I am adopting the same position as I did on Committee Stage, which is that I cannot accept these amendments. --- 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/dail/2026-05-13/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-13