Senator Bacik supporting debates on the quality of water supply, on crime and on the forthcoming Criminal Justice Bill

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I join Senator Donohoe in congratulating my colleague, Senator Norris. I support Senator Norris in his call for a debate on the quality of our water supply. The Senator has exhorted us to wake up and smell the water. This may be all we should do as it is apparently unsafe for drinking given the levels of e.coli and so on. It is important we debate this issue. I also support Senator Fitzgerald's call for a debate on the proposed national assets management agency. That debate is already taking place throughout the State and it should take place in this House today.

I ask the Leader for an early debate on crime, an issue of enormous concern to people in the wake of recent events, particularly the appalling murder of Roy Collins in Limerick. Not only was this a brutal and heinous crime against an individual, it was also a blow against the entire justice system. From what we have been told, it appears to represent a significant attempt to undermine the fundamental nature of the criminal justice system. That system relies on witnesses to come forward and to provide evidence in order to secure convictions. It is impossible for the Garda to do so without reliable evidence. Where witnesses are intimidated, there cannot be an operating justice system. That is why there has been such enormous concern in the wake of the sad death of Roy Collins.

In this context, I very much welcome the forthcoming Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Bill 2009 and look forward to debating it in this House. It will provide an important additional resource for the Garda in terms of gathering evidence and will mean the force is not entirely reliant on the testimony of witnesses. However, I urge caution in regard to calls for non-jury trials and the increased use of the Special Criminal Court. There is no question that we must deal with the serious problem of witness intimidation. In this context, there have been legislative changes to allow witness statements to be relied on even where the witness has recanted. However, we have not had the same argument about juror intimidation. There are other ways of dealing with this. The principle of jury trial is an important one which we as democrats should defend in this House and elsewhere. I hope we will have a robust debate on crime without a descent into cheap attacks on basic tenets of the criminal justice system. That would be a disaster for us all.