Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber. I will begin by welcoming the members of Fórsa to our Gallery, who are here for the debate. I want to put on the record correspondence I received from a lady in Castlebar, who I will not name on the record, but she is a civilian garda and works in the Garda Information Services Centre in Michael Davitt House in Castlebar. She wanted to discuss the concerns around this legislation. She said she works as a garda civilian in the Garda Information Services Centre in Michael Davitt House in County Mayo and enjoys the important role she plays in ensuring local communities are kept safe, and being accessible for the public. However, she stated that the proposed changes to her terms and conditions which would come as part of this Bill are unacceptable to her and her colleagues. This relates specifically to the proposed change of her civil servant status to that of a public servant. She said that the justification they received from the Minister for Justice was that this would unify the Garda workforce but that this does not align with her and her colleagues. She added that their trade union Fórsa undertook widespread consultation which showed the overwhelming majority of garda civilians do not want this nor do they understand the need for this change to occur. I wanted to put that on the record and ask that the Minister do what she can within her office to engage on this point and allay the concerns that have been raised by those Garda civilian members of the force.

I also welcome the Bill in general. It is a huge Bill and a lot of work has gone into it by the Minister, her Department and the Government as a whole. I welcome the proposed reforms within it. I welcome the establishment of the office of the independent examiner for security legislation. This particular issue in terms of national security has really come front and centre in recent years. We are far more aware now as an island nation of the need to protect our national security and for as much transparency as possible, while of course understanding that not everything can be made fully public at all times. That is a welcome advancement. It is progressive and is seen as bringing us into the modern era.

I also welcome the new policing and community safety authority that will replace the Policing Authority and the Garda Síochána Inspectorate. Having three different bodies, between the Policing Authority, the Garda Síochána Inspectorate and GSOC, means there are a lot of organisations or bodies involved in oversight of the Garda and in assessing complaints about gardaí. It is a lot for them to deal with so I welcome the bringing together of two of those bodies under one authority. I will stress as well, particularly regarding the reforms of GSOC, and my colleague Senator Gallagher also mentioned this, that one of the complaints about GSOC is that if an individual garda had a gripe or an issue with how the complaint process was being handled in terms of length of time or how it was dealt with, there was nowhere for that garda to go. Ultimately, with all of these reforms, it is really important gardaí feel there is fairness and due process at the heart of any process they are subject to or part of.I hope that will be the case going forward. It is interesting to see, as the Minister mentioned a couple of times in her statement, that community safety will be a whole-of-government responsibility. That is true in that community safety is not just about policing, whereas policing is the responsibility of the Department of Justice. I will focus on that later. However, it is important that we look at other things like social protection, welfare and health in terms of keeping people safe. It is important to acknowledge that. I welcome that it is part of the legislation and is being put on a statutory footing.

We are debating this new policing legislation against a backdrop of An Garda Síochána taking strike action. While I think the ongoing impasse and dispute within the force is regrettable, I support An Garda Síochána and the gardaí on the front line. As the Minister knows, the Garda Representative Association represents 11,000 gardaí working in the country, which is the vast majority. They are not happy with what is being proposed. The Minister knows this and the Garda Commissioner knows this. I know every effort is being made to resolve this matter. Yesterday, barristers and gardaí were striking on the same day, which is not a good place for the criminal justice system, or the security and safety of communities and policing in general, to be. It needs to get sorted quickly. Gardaí are talking about escalating to an all-out strike on 10 November. It is concerning that we do not yet know what the situation will be for policing and Garda presence on budget day and Hallowe'en. It needs to be addressed. I note the Garda Commissioner has reassured the Government and all of us that policing on those days will not be an issue, because if needed he will direct members to attend for overtime. I certainly hope we do not reach a situation where gardaí who are taking industrial action are ordered to do overtime. I think that will escalate matters and make it more difficult to find a resolution. There is still time to resolve this. I hope people can get around the table and resolve the issue.

This also links to the retention problem. It is acknowledged that since the Garda College in Templemore was understandably shut for a period during Covid, we have been trying to catch up by increasing the number of Garda recruits. That is happening. Numbers are increasing and we are getting more gardaí. However, the numbers leaving the force mean that some of what we are bringing in on one side is being lost on the other side, due to early retirement or people leaving the force earlier than would have happened previously. We need to address retention. I think Senator Dooley mentioned the pension issue. Maybe something has to happen there. There needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that the job they do is different from that of other public servants. They put their lives and safety at risk every day they go to work. That needs to be acknowledged. If they are leaving the force earlier than we would expect them to, we need to get to the root of that. I know exit interviews take place, but something has to happen to address the retention problem. Otherwise every effort we make to recruit gardaí will be offset by those leaving the force. I thank the Minister for her time today. I look forward to her response on how we plan to address retention and the concerns around GSOC in terms of complaints for gardaí.