I am interested and pleased in a way that the Minister has been able to inform the House that this did not arise from the petrol strike. That is encouraging. It is very interesting that this was being considered beforehand, in any event. I believe, and I know this from such connections as I have with the Defence Forces, that they are very conscious of operating within the rule of law. The Defence Forces legal service is an elaborate organisation, which takes its national and international obligations very seriously…

I welcome the Minister and acknowledge Senator Fitzpatrick's initiative in tabling this motion. That is where positivity ends, however.

I am wholly opposed to this because of my experience of what it actually means in this city. The reason for my opposition is because Dublin City Council is, I regret to say, a bit of a financial disaster area. It is spending its huge budget of €1.6 billion every year. Last year, in a cynical deal designed to get Fine Gael the lord mayorship, it decided that it would increase local property tax by 15% in the context of the discretionary reduction that councillors are allowed to use. Right across the entire area of i…

I am objective.

Vótáil.

I welcome the Minister here today. I indicate my support in general for this Bill and for the initiative the Minister is taking in proposing a Bill with a diverse category of miscellaneous provisions in it. I agree with him completely that it is difficult to organise legislative time and difficult to get measures through the Attorney General's office and the parliamentary draftsman’s office. If everything is done in a segmented way as the Minister implied, a lot of worthwhile initiatives will be postponed or never …

I welcome the Minister. In principle, I have no problem with the directive proposed in the European Parliament. We should do everything necessary to avoid trafficking in firearms, including trafficking in 3D-printed firearms. However, I have one question, which I hope the Minister will be able to answer. By opting in to the negotiation process, do we bind ourselves to opt in to the outcome, no matter what it is? That is an issue about which the House should be informed. Are we effectively opting in to something who…

It very nearly happened in Rathkeale last week.

I move amendment No. 1: In page 9, to delete lines 25 to 30.

I express my deep regret that a guillotine has been proposed for this legislation. The number of amendments tabled for consideration could be dealt with quite comfortably within the time period allocated to it. It may be that the proposed guillotine will be academic. We have to strongly protest that the Government has become addicted to using the guillotine even today when it not necessary. There is no call for it, nor is there any suggestion that this is being unnecessarily delayed or the like. The amendment relat…

Briefly, by way of reply, the problem is with the Minister saying that in his view, it is implicit that that is the case. That is not the way in which we should be legislating. Somebody on the street who is confronted by a garda, or somebody who is somewhere else where a garda is lawfully present, and the garda claims he suspects him of having committed any offence, at any time in the past, is not going to be able to search the Dáil record. He will not be able to say the Minister seemed to think that this was confi…

I move amendment No. 2: In page 11, to delete lines 16 to 19.

Amendment No. 2 seeks to delete lines 16 to 19 on page 11 of the Bill, as amended on Committee Stage. Those lines refer to "A person of whom a requirement under paragraph (c) of subsection (2) is made". The paragraph in question - section 11(2)(c) of the Bill - provides that a garda may "require the driver to be in or on or to accompany the vehicle, as may be appropriate, for so long as is necessary to complete the search". Section 11(4) of the Bill, which we are proposing to delete, refers to "the purposes of sect…

I said at the beginning that I know what the amendment is trying to achieve. If somebody does a runner, he or she is already caught by section 15 because he or she has failed to comply with section 11(2)(c) and is liable to be arrested if he or she does a runner. The particular need for section 11(4) is not apparent to me. If someone is required under section 11(2)(c) to "be in or on or accompany the vehicle, as may be appropriate, for so long as necessary to complete the search" and if he or she fails to do that, …

I press the amendment.

I move amendment No. 3: In page 11, to delete line 35 and substitute the following: “(b) the time, place and date of the search;”.

This amendment is very simple and again refers to page 11. It relates to the record of a search under sections 9 and 10, which is required by section 13(2)(b), and amends it to include the time, place and date of the search. That would cover circumstances where people are brought to special custody suites. In any event, there is no reason the place of the search should not be recorded on PULSE, wherever it is made and in whatever circumstance.

If the Minister could say, with his hand on his heart, that the PULSE record would not say it was on Grafton Street of wherever that I was searched, I would take what he is saying and think it was a very conservative position but maybe there was some sense in what he is saying. I believe that any record made by any member of An Garda Síochána of a stop and search will mention the place where it happened. The Minister may have forgotten the particular debate on Committee Stage that gave rise to the amendment was tha…

I know it is slightly out of order but, with the permission of the Chair, I just want to say that I do not take subsections (3) and (4) as being the entire purpose of the record being created. It is important for other general reasons of accountability of An Garda Síochána, regardless of whether or not the individual wants a record, that there is a proper record of the places of a search, the people who were searched and the outcomes of the search available to the Minister and the Commissioner. In those circumstanc…

I move amendment No. 4: In page 12, between lines 9 and 10, to insert the following: "Report on the operation of search and seizures 14. (1) It shall be the duty of the Commissioner to furnish to the Minister at least once in every calendar year a report containing the following data in anonymised format: (a) the total number of searches made under section 9; (b) the total number of searches made under section 10; (c) the total number of searches made under sections 9 and 10 where such searches did not result in th…