Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Commissioner and his colleagues for coming in. I will try to narrow the focus onto something, rather than ask a number of general questions.

I will use one example if that is okay. In his opening remarks and in answer to questions, the Commissioner talked about the stopping of the Luas and the protest that stopped it. In answering questions in relation to that, he talked about the policing decisions that were made. He defined the protest in a particular way and he defined how the Garda chose to deal with it in a particular way in relation to that outcome. A lot of people have different opinions as to whether something is peaceful or whether people should be able to bring public transport to a standstill in the centre of our city, and for that to be deemed tolerable or for there not to be intervention to reverse that. The Commissioner seemed to indicate that one of the reasons that decision was made was for operational reasons, namely, the number of gardaí who were present and the difficulty in doing it. What I would particularly like to know is what is going to change.

The Commissioner has talked about the fact that the Government has made available resources and funds and there are extra gardaí and increased units, but if a similar type of incident occurs tomorrow, next week or any week, how will the operation and the policing decisions around it be different? Do we still have to put up with a situation where, for operational policing reasons, people can engage in behaviour which is totally unacceptable? I appreciate that there is a containment being done by An Garda Síochána and that there are reasons for that but to the public it seems that nothing is being done. That is the type of thing that generates worry and fear and makes people feel it is unsafe. I speak about the fact that a member of the public might not believe he or she can take the Luas or bus into town. I know someone who was on the Luas when it was stopped. There was a real fear about what would happen next.

Does the Commissioner think he has the resources to deal with that or has he changed the way he will deal with it? Can he give some type of assurance to people in the event of something like that happening again? I am not talking about the later stages but the earlier stages. A lot of people feel the Commissioner has been policing in a way they do not agree with for a while. I ask the Commissioner to outline how things will change.