Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: From the Seanad Dail Éireann — 2026-07-08 ============================================================ Conor Sheehan (LAB), Limerick City I thank the Minister of State for her response and welcome her to her new job. This is our first exchange on these issues. We are not instinctively opposed in totality to what the Government is trying to do here. We support the spirit of what it is trying to do. The issue that we have is as follows. The Seanad wording refers to criminal offences generally but it does not refer in a defined and narrower way to "arrestable offences", which is the term used elsewhere in the Bill. When the Minister of State referred in her reply to, for example, child sex offences, I understand the rationale for that and I understand where the Minister of State is coming from. However, we want to make sure there are sufficient guardrails in this legislation to ensure it applies to arrestable serious offences. As drafted, it could permit a Garda biometric analysis to be carried out in aid of co-operation with any domestic or foreign law enforcement body for any criminal offence without that co-operation being tied to a specific or defined treaty, agreement or statutory framework. What concerns me is the lack of definition in what the Government is proposing. Our amendment would limit the use of this provision to co-operation through Europol, or at least through an international agreement designated by the Minister. We believe these are common-sense guardrails to protect the independence of our policing. It is disappointing that, as Deputy Carthy noted, we have not had the chance to properly scrutinise this measure in the Oireachtas, because it is a significant expansion of the Bill's original drafting. I had hoped the Minister of State would accept the amendment. We brought it forward in good faith to make sure the legislation is not left too open to function properly. I am concerned that we have a scenario where a police force, maybe in Europe or further afield, could potentially use live FRT at a protest or civil disturbance, and would then request that gardaí scan those images against their own files. The Minister of State said that a code of practice has to be laid before and agreed by both Houses. I would welcome it if she would clarify whether, under the legislation, as amended, it is possible for a police force to use live FRT at a protest and then request that gardaí scan those images against their files. --- 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/2026-07-08/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-08