Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have seen the shot of the textbook and it is a very short paragraph. It lacks an awful lot of definition. A paragraph does not say everything but it looked to be quite open-ended. That is what I would always have seen discretion to be. Discretion is open-ended. A referee on a sports field has a degree of discretion. He or she has a rule book and then there is a little bit of discretion. An Garda Síochána members are passing out from Templemore, being posted to stations around the country and being told that these are the laws of Ireland, this is how they are empowered to enforce them but that they have an element of discretion when it comes to the road traffic Acts. There is an absolute need for clarity on that but such clarity has been lacking. Discretion probably needs to be removed at this point or else book-ended by a definition because unfortunately, it has led to a lot of people facing disciplinary action. I was a teacher previously. If I was told one thing in college and I practised that when I was teaching, what wrong was I doing? I would say the same principle would apply in An Garda Síochána. If gardaí are told to exercise discretion and they exercise it in their role and justify it, what wrong are they doing? That does not equate to a sensible approach.