Criminal Justice (International Cooperation on Electronic Evidence and Other Matters) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

It does not because, with due respect, the Minister of State is missing the point. The amendment is in respect of specific states and the ability to suspend co-operation, in part or in full, based on the list of scenarios I have set out. Arguably and hopefully, the provision would never need to be utilised, but it would be negligent not to put a safeguard in place. People might ask when or how what I describe could happen. Consider where the Hungarian Government got very close to in terms of control of the courts and the breakdown of independence in the Judiciary and the police. It is not beyond our wildest imagination that we could end up in a similar situation. What the Minister has outlined is a very convoluted process whereby each individual application that might come from a state would have to be dealt with through the process as outlined.
I understand what the Minister is saying about potential Executive powers. Again, however, the motion as it is set out states it would involve the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration in consultation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Essentially, that implies it will be a Government decision. There would be very real concerns and very valid reasons a Cabinet would come to the point that it would invoke the measure, and it would only be on the basis that it was actually protecting the rule of law, the conditionality regulation, protecting our own Constitution and protecting the EU treaty frameworks in respect of democracy and the rule of law. I hope such a provision will never be needed, but I can tell the Minister of State that if the protection is needed and we do not have it in place, these Houses will be judged very harshly.
My next point is critical because this is a debate that probably is not happening to the same extent in all EU member states. Considering the prevalence of the companies in respect of which orders and requests will be made in this State, we are going to play a disproportionate role in the decisions made. With 300,000 requests annually, I fear this will become routine for any member state seeking information.
For most criminal investigations, we want a seamless process. We want Irish authorities to be able to contact other authorities to seek electronic data and to get the information very quickly. We have to be confident, however, that all such requests are made on the basis of a genuine need to address a criminal issue rather than for some of the more concerning reasons for which requests have been in other states around the world. In this regard, the type of power in question has been used to curtail people’s freedom, not only freedom of expression but also freedom of movement and other fundamental human rights.
Again, I ask for support for the amendment. I am urging that we put in place a protection. This is what it is. Ultimately, we are talking about a protection that we hope and expect will never need to be used but without which I fear we will be adopting legislation that is going to be very good only in theory, as the officials themselves said to the committee, and that ultimately will not provide the confidence in our legislation that we should be demanding as that legislation would be underpinned by EU regulations we would have no power to amend in the future.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17