Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important Bill, which along with my colleagues in the Green party, I welcome. As my colleague Deputy Cuffe, our party spokesman on justice, said, confidence in the Garda Síochána needs to be restored. Public perception of the Garda is not as positive as it could be. At local level, while there are gripes about the Garda, people do not have a great many complaints about individual members of the force. I count among my personal friends many Garda members and I acknowledge the great work the force has done in upholding law and order since its inception, as well as the positive contribution it has made. That cannot be underestimated, but we must consider why confidence has dwindled and how it can be restored. I note that the clergy, journalists and politicians are held in lower esteem than gardaí, so we must keep matters in context.

We have heard the revelations from the Morris tribunal. Earlier today, Deputy Rabbitte also outlined the case involving Dean Lyons. Throughout the State, there are many examples of Garda impropriety, real or alleged, and of Garda incompetence or lack of training. I will give some examples, though on the whole the force does a very good job. At an anti-war protest outside Leinster House a few years ago I saw a sergeant kicking some protestors on the ground. I also saw one of the protestors kicking the sergeant, so it is important to keep matters in context. Two days later, a close relative of mine who was protesting peacefully with a pot and a pan, was kicked in the face by a garda. I do not know if that was intentional, but these incidents must be mentioned.

Another relative told me of a case involving a friend who is a taxi driver. I say this with some degree of caution as one can never be quite sure if a secondhand story is an urban legend. Allegedly, a taxi driver dropped a customer at his home in a north Kildare suburb. The customer ran off without paying his fare and the taxi driver gave chase. A local garda told the taxi driver he was a garda and told him to let the customer go. The taxi driver continued to give chase. The garda then intervened and got the fare from the customer. It turned out the customer was a brother of the garda. The incident was reported to the local Garda station and an investigation was promised. A couple of nights later, the garda involved arrived at the taxi driver's home to say he was investigating the case, even though his Garda station had nothing to do with the area where the incident occurred.

These are everyday examples of members of the Garda not doing their jobs to the highest standard and not living up to the oath they have taken. However, they are isolated cases. Not so isolated, and increasing, are incidences of institutional racism.

The debate on this Bill is a broad one and I want to contribute as broadly as possible. In publishing the Bill, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, has played it pretty safe. We need real reform of the Garda Síochána. While there are moves to establish the Garda ombudsman commission, other issues need to be considered in more detail than given in the Bill. They include Garda training, recruitment, accountability, paper work, IT and most importantly, Garda numbers and resources.

There is also the issue of whether the Bill proposes any real change in the existing system of political appointments of senior Garda officers. No additional independence or new system of transparency is mentioned. Several sections of the Bill are of concern to my party. Some sections give very broad powers to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which I would prefer this Minister would not have. Section 23(2)(c), for example, directs the Garda Commissioner to have regard to any relevant policies of the Minister or the Government. I hope the Garda Síochána remains an independent police service in order to retain the relatively high levels of public confidence it has, and to fight against the fall-off in that confidence. There is a need for an independent, credible police service. The Bill must allow for full accountability and genuine independence.

Section 7(4) states that in performing its functions, the Garda Síochána shall have regard to the importance of upholding human rights. My colleague Deputy Cuffe suggested we should add to that: "and ensure fair and equal treatment and respect for all".

I will comment later on the Garda training issue, particularly with regard to recruits in Templemore, but will first consider some of the discretionary powers alluded to earlier. I mentioned the reference to human rights, as noted in the Bill on page 11, section 7(4), line 36. The objective of the Garda is to prevent crime and preserve peace and public order. While the section covers the area of upholding human rights it needs to be further expanded to exclude discrimination. Discrimination in this sense means, for example, discrimination against ethnic minorities or religious groupings.

The audit report of the Garda human rights working group raised important issues. While credit is due to the Garda Commissioner and the force on their initial response, we must ensure they deal with all the outstanding issues. For example, the independent audit found that procedures in practice can lead to institutional racism, particularly with regard to Nigerians, Travellers and Muslims.

It is not good enough, as the Garda Commissioner said, to give a broad promise that by the end of 2007 all the proposed measures will be implemented. It will take longer unless the whole ethos of what makes the Garda Síochána is radically changed. Some of their proposals, for example, are the plans to deal with institutional racism and racist crime. Recently, we had a situation on a local 25A bus where a Portuguese national EU citizen married to a lifelong Lucan resident was subjected to consistent racist abuse on the bus. Gardaí say, initially at least, they cannot do anything about it. It might require more person hours to track the people living in the area to check for witnesses. There is, obviously, a higher level of priorities, which I understand. However, unless these issues are nipped in the bud and a zero tolerance approach is adopted and unless trial case studies can show gardaí standing up for people suffering from racist abuse, public confidence will continue to fall. The same applies to human rights impact assessments as outlined in the audit report. There should also be more support for Garda staff who report human rights abuses because we all know peer pressure is strong.

As a Deputy from a multicultural constituency I would like to see members of the Garda Síochána of African or Asian descent or gardaí who are Muslim or from the Indian sub-continent. Quite a number of my constituents were not born in Ireland, yet few gardaí, if any, have parents from outside the State. We need to see more of them in the force in order to give confidence to rapidly growing communities that they can depend on the Garda.

The need to work with the Traveller community is a separate issue. I know of instances where criminal Traveller families have terrorised other Traveller families. The culture of the Traveller is not to report to the Garda, but to move away from feuds. More needs to be done in that respect, possibly in terms of how sensitively we deal with Travellers in terms of their cultural background in order to build more liaison between the Traveller community and members of the force.

Section 55 sets out 11 specific situations where the disclosure of information can reasonably be considered to be harmful. Grounds (j), for example, refer to information that "affects adversely the international relations or interests abroad of the State, including those with Northern Ireland". We believe the wording is way too broad, that it can be interpreted in any which way and may have unknown economic or diplomatic effects we will not be able to quantify.

One of the important parts of the Bill is section 14 that states that the Garda Commissioner "may appoint persons as volunteer members of the Garda Síochána to assist it in exercising its functions". Volunteers should get exactly the same training as other gardaí before exercising these Garda functions. I would also like to see more civilian members of the force involved in office duties so that gardaí can do the job they were trained to do. This issue has caused difficulty in the past and is not covered under the terms of this Bill per se. It and the issue of volunteer members should be covered. If we have volunteer members and civilians working in clerical positions, they should all receive the necessary training so they can step into the breach if required.

Section 122, which relates to security officers, states that an authorised body may designate a person as a security officer if satisfied that "the person is a suitable person to exercise the powers of a security officer under this section in relation to specified premises" and if " the person has received adequate training for that purpose". We would like to see human rights training inserted in section 122 (2)(b)(ii) for all volunteers as part of that training. We do not want a separate structure. Perhaps a volunteer should not have to spend as long in Templemore, but they should have a training module with the same type of training as gardaí, including human rights training.

Currently, the majority of human rights training carried out at Templemore is interpreted human rights training in so far as people are trained to train. Human rights training is too important to be second-hand. It should be direct and should be enshrined into the thinking of a garda. My friends in the force have often told me that on becoming gardaí they cannot think about people's social background or circumstances or what caused them to commit a crime. They are not supposed to have sympathy that would impact on their job. Human rights training is not sympathy. Human rights recognise rights enshrined under Irish and EU law and under UN charters. For that reason training in human rights is important for public confidence. We do not need one eejit on May Day or one at an anti-war protest to be heavy-handed for lack of proper training. That is all I will say on this. Gardaí need to have a good reputation if they are to continue their job in the economic circumstances over which this Government has largely presided, circumstances that have caused a number of social problems.

The Green Party has a number of concerns, mentioned by Deputy Cuffe, related to section 58 with regard to the three members to form the Garda ombudsman commission. We want these positions advertised publicly. We would prefer one member because that would be someone identifiable, similar, for example, to Emily O'Reilly.

I would like to have had time to mention sections 86 and 91 but will move on to the broader picture for the time remaining. Deputy Gilmore referred to the economic boom and its fruits earlier and had an altercation with the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, on the matter. I believe the economic boom as presided over by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats is a system of hire purchase in that we purchase from the future what we spend today. We will pay it back in terms of social problems that have been caused by prosperity.

I speak in broad terms about anti-social behaviour, but I am also talking about the breakdown in family values that leads to situations that encourage criminal activity. I am talking about the lack of investment in our education system. I know record amounts of money have been invested in it, but given the Progressive Democrats in particular consider strongly the economic value of everything, I am sure nobody would argue that although it may seem exorbitant to invest an extra €500 million, for example, into the education system, this actually saves the country in 20 years time from the cost of imprisoning people or from the cost of paying social welfare to people who were not educated to as high a standard as they could have been.

This is the reason we need to nip the social decline in the bud now. We need to ensure that one in seven children do not leave primary school with reading and writing difficulties. They are the people who will not go on to do their junior or leaving certificates or go to college. They are the ones who get lower paid jobs. They are the ones who are more likely to get involved in crime. The Progressive Democrats look at these matters in economic terms.

See this speech in context