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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Catherine Ardagh (FF), Dublin South-Central

I thank the Deputy for his amendment. He sought information on the e-portal. Connection to the decentralised IT system for SMEs will be via a web portal and access will be provided to their nominated addressee. If the data being returned is less than 25 Mb it will be sent via the system, but if it is greater it will be sent via another secure means and the cost associated with this will be minimal.
Unfortunately, I cannot accept amendments Nos. 2 and 3.
The language of amendment No. 2 is quite vague and it would be effectively meaningless in practice. The legal obligations on service providers are determined by EU regulation and directive. It is not open to the director to alter them. If there is a case for non-compliance, there will be an administrative burden on service providers who are subject to investigation but that cannot be avoided if a proper, fair and impartial investigation is to be carried out.
Amendment No. 3 seeks to introduce a double criminality provision. However, the question of double criminality is determined by the EU regulation. It is addressed in Article 12(1)(d) of the regulation, which provides one of the grounds for refusal of a European production order by an enforcing authority such as a director. It states:
the conduct for which the order has been issued does not constitute an offence under the law of the enforcing State, unless it concerns an offence listed within the categories of offences set out in Annex IV, as indicated by the issuing authority in the EPOC, if it is punishable in the issuing State by a custodial sentence or a detention order for a maximum period of at least three years.
Annex IV contains a list of 32 categories of serious offences, all of which constitute offences under Irish law. It is not open to us to vary this EU provision, which is legally binding on the director. In the case of Irish law, the regulation is not in conflict with the intention behind the amendment, so the amendment is redundant.

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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