The bill's only been very recently published (HN is picking up on this quite quickly), so there hasn't been very much official commentary on this just yet.
Otherwise though, there has been widespread backlash. The govt. absolutely have the votes to push this through parliament if they want to, but public sentiment could definitely give them pause.
Given the scale of the bill, and it being accompanied by another related bill which apparently reduces oversight of the Garda (police), my suspicion is that this is a strategic strawman bill, with the intent being to push through a watered-down-but-still-pretty-terrible version of it after some "consultation" & amendments to remove the most publicly-objectionable highlights.
Thanks. What's the underlying motive behind the push do you think? Political pressure to do something about the kinahan/hutch gangland killings? Can't see how this would be particularly effective for that but it seems to have come from nowhere no?
Off the top of my head, while the severity and scope of this is indeed surprising, the direction is not. Just as police authoritarianism has been on the rise internationally (notably in the misuse of vague anti-terrorist legislation in the US & UK to grant broad policing power in many areas unrelated to terrorism), the same trend has also been present to a certain degree in Ireland. FG have been in power for 10 uninterrupted years and have traditionally been the law and order party. Their idea of police reform when the Garda was hit with numerous misconduct scandals was to install a former-RUC officer as head of the Gardaí. So this is all ideologically in line with the ruling party at least.
Additionally, anti police sentiment has generally been on the increase in the past 2 years so this could be a response to that. Recently the country has been trying to open up post-covid by encouraging outdoor dining, events and gatherings (given doing so indoors is still prohibited), with many initiatives being heavily invested in by local city councils. Those initiatives have been completely undermined by riot police arriving to clear public spaces & incite street violence, seemingly with no communication or coordination with local councils (local councils typically being populated by representatives of parties who are in opposition at national gov level).
So... it could be a lot of things. Or it could be gangland killings.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties are in the process of analysing it https://twitter.com/ICCLtweet/status/1404417358135971841
Otherwise though, there has been widespread backlash. The govt. absolutely have the votes to push this through parliament if they want to, but public sentiment could definitely give them pause.
Given the scale of the bill, and it being accompanied by another related bill which apparently reduces oversight of the Garda (police), my suspicion is that this is a strategic strawman bill, with the intent being to push through a watered-down-but-still-pretty-terrible version of it after some "consultation" & amendments to remove the most publicly-objectionable highlights.