Bríd Smith questions 100m safe-access zones and Gardaí warnings

Thanks very much. I am sorry, my voice is very compromised and thankfully most of the questions I wanted to ask you have been asked and answered very well. Thank you very much for your work. It is just a comment around the thing about curtilage. There are some buildings where services are provided that the definition of 100 metres from the entrance still does not satisfactorily address the question of protest. I can immediately think of Hollis Street Hospital. You could be 100 metres away from the entrance and still outside the window where a woman might be receiving care or a doctor might be providing care or whatever. I know when the Gardaí were here they had a real problem with the definition. But yes, the definition is very clear in the Electoral Act. As somebody who has contested many elections, as everybody else in this room has, that is constantly implemented. All Gardaí are familiar with it. You cannot go within 100 metres of a polling booth to distribute literature or you will be warned. If you do it again in another polling booth up the road, you will be told you were just doing that down the road and I told you off. So they have experience of implementing legislation with that definition and all of the Gardaí understanding exactly what is required. We have seen that actively, you see as actively as every election. I have had pensioners given out leaflets for me innocently, being repeatedly warned by the Gardaí not to be doing that. So I just found their response on these things a little bit, I don't mean obtuse, but picky, you know, picky on the safe access zones, but not very well capable of implementing the legislation that contains court diligence, the definition of 100 metres, etc. And there are venues that would still not benefit from the 100 metres from the entrance, you know, end of. I want to just to alert that. I am also a bit confused about high warnings given, taking into account the argument made by Alice Mary there on relay protesters, because that is what they do. They do adhere all the time to us. Certain protesters are doing it in certain venues with refugees in them now. Why warnings can't be recorded? Why Gardaí can't record? I have just given Miriam O'Connor a warning and it goes somewhere that if Miriam O'Connor appears somewhere else, they are all able to say you have been warned already. I don't understand why I don't understand why that can't be done, because I would be worried about that relay nature that would allow them to circumvent legislation. I wonder if I could have a look at that again, if it is possible. Could you clarify for us what the penalties involved are? Is there immediate fines or what penalties would people who breach safe access zones be facing? I know you have gone into the difficulty about the guards wanting to go to the DPP and I totally get you are correct in being concerned about that. We would all be concerned about that. What are the penalties? Just so the public and ourselves are clear. Do you want to start with the penalties? The penalties are set out in Head 8 of the general scheme. There has not been any real, I don't think, deviation from that in terms of the drafting, other than under Head 6. Another point that the Gardaí made in relation to the original Head 6 was because we were treating it as a summary offence. They would not have the necessary powers of investigation. The fact that it would be covered now by section 10 and eventually by section 23 would increase the penalties for that offence. I think it is seven years potentially on indictment for a first offence which makes it an arrestable offence which gives them the necessary powers of search and arrest to investigate it. That was one of the considerations in using the existing law for harassment. That was one of the other considerations. In terms of penalties, I don't think we have deviated from the penalties set out in the general scheme and they are contained in Head 8 of the general scheme. On the issue of the curtilage, we are getting down to the real street level view of what the 100 metres is. There are not too many instances where even Hollis Street, because it applies to all entrances, with one side of the Merrion Square and the other down Hollis Street itself. I would think, and we will be able to map this very closely, that it will protect the full perimeter and the windows, as you say, but it is an issue that we will look at and pay attention to as we develop the mapping of the hospital sites in particular. At the moment you do not think it is? I do not think so. Hollis Street is quite exceptional just being so on the street, but I think with the two entrances, the two entrances that it will not have an area where people could protest directly in the window of anything, but we will look at that. Thanks for raising it. The issue of warnings has been quite difficult. It is just something that was advised to us by external counsel in terms of the proportionality, the implementability of the Act and the fairness to any potential offender to clarify that they are in danger of breaching, of breaking the law. We are looking very actively at the advice from the Guards to lean into the Criminal Justice Public Order Act. In a sense, if we were to go down that way, we would be getting advice in the immediate days ahead on it. There is kind of a warning in how the Guards engage with people. They do explain the law, they do explain the safe access zone, if this is what we were doing, and they are charged ultimately with failure to comply with a direction from the Guard. So there is an element of warning there, but it is the recording or documenting of a warning, and retention of that warning is the difficulty. That is not done at the moment. Is it not done under the Public Order Act? It is not done under the Public Order Act, no. Okay. So there is a lot of interaction, and I would say in a lot of cases there is a warning delivered, but it is verbal and it is not intended to be documented, and the Guard then can press and say, I have warned you and I am now charging you with failure to comply with direction from a Guard, and you are basically busted. It does not cover what Senator Higgins raised about a relay that would organise eight or ten people sequentially harassing someone. But we will talk to the Department of Justice and the Guards again about the point raised here about whether the harassment legislation that exists at the moment is sufficient, the number of convictions that are achieved under it and so forth. As you say, there are wider issues now around protests at people's residence and so forth. One last thing. I appreciate all those answers. Thanks very much. We would look for reassurance on the question of workers' protests outside these centres. We absolutely need that. The last conversation you were having there about data and the collation of data through the HSE. I actually think that is quite important and it is important that the HSE do it as well. Because it is interesting there, you probably have a more comprehensive list, but everything you listed there in the leafy suburbs of South Dublin, and it is quite possible for the same people to be doing this. Do you know? More than likely it is moving around. So I think it is important, the collection of data is important. Lastly, you were asked earlier on, but I am not sure that we got an answer. Do you have any idea when the whole process will be completed? It is not to be in any way evasive. We are working on this as fast as possible. There is ongoing engagement and the Minister is very anxious to see it completed as quickly as possible. There are a number, I suppose, of outstanding issues that we need to bottom out with the OPC, and as soon as that is done, and we are aware of the urgency around this, as soon as that is done, we would hope to finalise the bill, hopefully. Okay, thanks.