Gay Mitchell (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. When Bills of this nature come before the House, Members should be encouraged to speak their minds freely and I hope the editor of Garda News notes this. There was a time when Deputies had gardaí shifted but now the gardaí seem to think it is their job to get Deputies shifted. Neither is right and since we have ended the process of Deputies moving gardaí, it is time the Garda Representative Association ended some of its less mature activities and inability to take criticism. It should grow up and realise this House exists to examine and oversee the role of the Executive and some of its agencies.

I pay tribute to Assistant Garda Commissioner Tony Hickey and Superintendent Kevin O'Donoghue for the way they handled the situation in Midleton. I have no intention of raising this ongoing issue other than to say it would restore the faith of anyone who doubted the professionalism and compassion of the Garda Síochána. They handled it in a sensitive manner and, despite the publicity, they did their job without letting it influencing them.

I am concerned that every time we introduce a measure in this House to look at Garda ethics and accountability, the machinery we put in place is often pro forma and does not work. When we raise this issue, it is like talking about the press council where the media owners get protective. It would help the Garda Síochána if a fair complaints procedure were in place. Vexatious complaints should not be entertained but the Garda should not be able to decide what is vexatious. An independent person must do that.

The office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has established itself as a fair, independent and reasonable oversight body. I am increasingly concerned at our partitionism, where we change from miles to kilometres seemingly to ensure the Republic is somehow different from Northern Ireland, instead of looking at ways we could be the same. Should there not just be one ombudsman, North and South, to hear complaints about the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Síochána, who would be totally independent and act without fear or favour? Is it necessary to establish an entirely different complaints machinery?

I instigated the proposal that the Garda Commissioner become the Accounting Officer for the force and I welcome that development. I am glad that the Commissioner will have to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts to account for expenditure, efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out policy. He will not be there to be questioned on policy. Local policing committees would be very welcome, but I hope they will not be like what we had in the past when the assistant commissioner came and, with the press present, councillors made outrageous statements and no real work was done. I do not know what is provided in the legislation — I could not pick it out on my first reading of it — but there is a case for providing that those bodies meet in private if they are to be taken seriously. The question of who chairs the committees is also important. A committee is only as good as its chairperson. If it has a good chairperson and the committee meets in private, some work will be done.

I was the instigator of policing fora. I drafted the first motion on behalf of the policing forum in Rialto and got the Dáil Deputies at the time from Dublin Central and Dublin South-Central to sign it. On behalf of the Rialto network I arranged a meeting with the Garda Commissioner. The Deputies from both constituencies who were available met the Commissioner in Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park and fora were set up. That was approximately five years ago. Some of them have worked well while others have not.

I am glad the committees are being put on a statutory footing. However, it has been argued by the policing forum with which I am most familiar that there are no resources for the forum. I do not believe it needs a full-time secretary but there should be an independent resource who would be available to keep minutes, ensure that what is agreed is followed up between meetings and help the chairman to ensure there is an orderly meeting of the forum and that it does not meet three or six months after the previous meeting and merely discuss issues it discussed previously. There needs to be a follow-up process. That would assist the Garda Síochána as well as the local community.

When we started the process in Rialto, the atmosphere was so hostile that it was difficult for the public representatives to sit in the room with the gardaí and the local community at the same time. The gardaí, middle ranking Garda management who were there, felt badly done by. To some extent they had a case because some of the activities going on were for covert political purposes — gardaí were being used in a propagandist way. The community felt, also with a great deal of justification, that they had been let down by the State. I was a Minister of State at the time and one day I stated that we, the State, had let these people down. At the time there was an open supermarket of drugs in Dolphin's Barn in my constituency. Despite the fact that the local community, including local business people, wrote down the registration numbers of the vehicles coming to collect the drugs, nothing was done. The judges let them down. The Garda let them down. We, the public representatives, let them down. The Government, of which I was a member at the time, let them down. I said that and was denounced for it by the spokesman on behalf of the Garda representative organisations and even by Garda management. A retired judge also got in on the act. However, what I had said was true.

I am glad to see there have been changes. In many cases now community gardaí in my constituency are known by their first names to local youths in the inner city flats complexes. That is a great change. That sort of turnaround in a community cannot be bought. It is, therefore, very important that the gardaí engage with the community and that the community engages with the gardaí for the morale of the gardaí and their self-fulfilment but also for the good of the community. These fora could be made to work and could be beneficial to both sides.

Reference has been made to the Lord Mayor's commission. This is the second Lord Mayor's commission. I set up the first one, and I did not get the same co-operation from the then Minister for Justice as the current Minister is giving to this Lord Mayor's commission. I salute the Minister for that. It is right that national Government should co-operate with local government. In my case the commission was not chaired by me, nor did it include politicians. It was chaired by Mr. Justice Moriarty who compiled a very good report. I ask the Minister to examine that report and see what outstanding issues there are that he might address in the context of Dublin. Much of it dealt with street furniture, ensuring there were no dark dank stairwells and matters of that kind, which is part of the policing environment but not, strictly speaking, a policing issue.

On the issue of training, I ask the Minister to take the opportunity at some stage to report to the House on the training procedures used for gardaí and what sort of testing there is of the people who sign up for the Garda Síochána. Do they receive any training in communicating with the public? Quite a while ago I had a constituent who was a great supporter of the Garda. When his bicycle was stolen one day, he went to the station and the garda on duty told him the book was not there and to come back in six hours when somebody else was on duty. From being a great supporter of the Garda, this man was completely turned off. All the garda needed to do was take the details and that man would have continued to be a fan of the Garda forever. How gardaí engage with the public is important, particularly for the gardaí themselves. People think highly of the Garda Síochána. There is nothing people like to see more than a garda on the beat.

Will the Minister examine what ethical training is given to garda officers regarding the importance of the oath in court cases and the criminality of perjury? That needs to be re-emphasised, given the flippant way in which some cases have, allegedly, been referred to in the past.

I have a further criticism regarding the management of the Garda Síochána. It is sometimes amusing, even for gardaí, to hear that the Garda Síochána is investigating a leak. One senior garda told me the Garda Síochána was the leakiest organisation in town. That must stop. If a citizen, whether he or she is a public figure, is pulled in by the Garda Síochána, his or her details and telephone number should not be supplied to the nearest press office or media contact even before the person gets home. Unfortunately, that has happened in the past. It is all very well for this Bill to provide that a garda cannot be a member of a political party, but gardaí should be banned from all political activity, not just party-political activity. It is wrong for gardaí to involve themselves as players, for whatever reason, in communicating information to the press, whether it is done officially through the press office or by individual gardaí. It should be a serious disciplinary matter to breach confidence or be involved in currying favour with the media by passing on private information about citizens.

I am concerned about access to telephone records. I understand that, without any oversight, the Garda can go to Éircom or one of the other providers and obtain details of people's telephone calls, for example, a Member of the House talking to a journalist or two journalists talking to each other. Details of the fact that they made a call, not the content of the call, can be obtained. I see heads nodding. Perhaps that has been changed. If it has not been changed I would like the Minister to tell the House what oversight is in place to ensure that is not abused, that somebody does not go to their favourite uncle to get information that would be of assistance to them and that the rights of journalists, public representatives and other citizens are not interfered with.

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