Simon Harris accused of ‘taking shortcuts’ in last-ditch bid to pass facial tech laws for gardaí

On his last day in the Justice brief before the return of Helen McEntee from maternity leave, Mr Harris publicly called on the Coalition to agree to his proposals, arguing that gardaí “cannot wait any longer” for body cams.

But the Green Party restated its opposition to Mr Harris’s plans, which are supported by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin, to amend garda body camera legislation to give the force powers to use facial recognition technology (FRT) in limited circumstances.

The party wants standalone legislation instead.

A war of words broke out as Green Party TD Patrick Costello, of the Oireachtas Justice Committee, accused Mr Harris of “taking shortcuts” to try to advance FRT through the committee stage process of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill.

The Greens have privately rejected claims they are blocking giving gardaí body cameras and blame Mr Harris for stymying the progress of his own bill by trying to introduce FRT by way of an amendment.

A Fine Gael source insisted the Greens are blocking the bill. “It’s very weird when you have a compromise that only one side is compromising on,” they said. “We’ve given up a lot and compromised a lot.”

Mr Costello told Independent.ie: “We can have body cameras and could have progressed the legislation a week ago but his conflation of facial recognition technology with body cams is a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters of an important debate.”

Garda management has argued that body-cam legislation would not be effective without the powers to use FRT.

Mr Costello said: “Body cameras will make guards safer even without FRT. We shouldn’t be rushing FRT and we should pass a clean body cams bill.”

Mr Harris brought a proposed compromise to the coalition leaders earlier this month – but Mr Ryan did not agree to it. His proposals include an effective ban on the use of FRT except in certain circumstances for crimes that would normally carry a life sentence. A High Court judge would also provide an annual report on the use of FRT by An Garda Síochána.

The Green Party said it is “not supportive” of Mr Harris’ amendments.

A government spokesperson for the party said it is “not ruling out” a “limited form” of FRT but warned that there would be “enormous consequences”.

They said a standalone piece of law on FRT, instead of it being included as an amendment to the existing body-cam legislation, could be scrutinised in depth by a committee where experts are invited in.

Earlier, Mr Harris told reporters at his last press event as Justice Minister: “

I see absolutely no reason why this can’t be decided within weeks and I think, if there was a failure to move on this within weeks, then I think that would raise very serious questions about how we’re protecting gardaí in this country.”