Michael McDowell (Independent)
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I take what has been said about morale very seriously. I see all the ingredients that have been mentioned as accumulating one after another. There is a sense of impunity. Three or four teenagers will go into a shop at night and create havoc. There is no sense that there is likely to be any reaction. Even if it is all on camera, it will not go anywhere. That is also connected, and I would like some reaction on this, to delays in the Irish court system, which are horrific. From the most serious case to the most trivial case, our system delays dealing with them in a way that nobody else does. In the United Kingdom, people are in jail in England while a book of evidence, or its equivalent, would still be being prepared in Ireland. Something must be done about that. When I was Minister for Justice, I tried to ask the DPP why it was that our system, with its generous bail regime, allowed for much greater delay in confronting somebody with an accusation of criminal behaviour and bringing about justice.

It seems to me that the whole idea that people do not face a consequence or, if it is somebody who is socially marginalised, that consequence is 18 months or two years down the line, is a seriously debilitating feature of our system.

Second, I take into account what has been said about social media. It must be very demoralising and off-putting for people to see gardaí derided, threatened and abused in public with impunity. They appear to have to just lap it up. By the way, I believe a more severe view should be taken of abusing a member of the Garda in a threatening manner. I really believe that people who do it should be prosecuted. We cannot have a situation where people can just unload venom and abuse at members of An Garda Síochána which, if it was addressed to any other member of the community, would provoke retaliation. That must be debilitating for members of An Garda Síochána and I accept that.

I also accept the proposition that has been put here that we cannot have both commuting gardaí and community gardaí. They are incompatible. I do not know about the housing problem. That cannot be solved at this committee but it must be a factor that, combined with all of the other factors, is creating problems.

For 20 years now, we have had the failure of the Government to deal with the prison accommodation issue. Today, we read of people who are accused of very serious crimes, and even convicted of them, being released temporarily from prison. These are violent burglars but they cannot be named because they are too young. Why would a garda spend time trying to bring home the prosecution if, at the end of it, the Prison Service says, “There is nothing we can do about it; out you go”?

What I am really saying is that I am listening very carefully to the morale question. There are also some other questions I would like to address. Is there a gender difference when it comes to retirement? Are men or women in the Garda more likely to go early or is there any pattern discernible as to who goes early? On another issue, at the moment, across the public service, there is a good deal of working from home. Obviously, the one thing gardaí cannot do is work from home. That is another factor putting people at a disadvantage compared to other public servants, which adds to the demoralisation factor.

I empathise with what the witnesses are saying. I ask them to answer one question very concisely: if they were the new Commissioner, what would they do to deal with these issues?