Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I will not do it. I do not subscribe to the venal political habit of saying the Garda is a wonderful force, nobody should criticise it and reminding everybody about the thin blue line. I do not engage in such activity. I have had to take a fair amount of heat and flak regarding my proposals to reform the Garda. I have had to face criticism at every hand's turn for what I am doing but I am proud of the Garda and the huge majority of its members who carry out their functions in a professional, courteous way.

Would the force's sternest critics be willing to discharge the functions of an ordinary man or woman who enlists in the Garda for a week or a month? Would they go to the door of an accident victim's family and say a son or daughter has been killed? Would they stand guard while bodies lie on the ground for hours on end? Would they risk their lives at bank robberies or confronting armed subversives in our society? Many good gardaí have engaged in these activities and I want to give them leadership and constructive reform, not a thrashing in public for what they have or have not done.

I stand by the great majority who support the legislation I have introduced, even though it is a challenge for them. Many of their preconceptions will not merely be challenged but broken under the new regime that will unfold when the legislation is implemented. The Garda is our only police force and getting it from its present state, which is one of challenge and one in which failures have been exposed, back to where we want it to be — a force of which everybody is proud, in which is everybody has confidence and which is governed and manned to the highest professional standards — requires a balanced approach from this House to the question of reform.

The white heat of outrage is understandable in the context of the Morris tribunal reports, especially when one reflects, as Deputy Costello eloquently stated on the last occasion, that but for the grace of God, innocent people could be serving life sentences arising from one incident of wrongdoing that was discovered. The white heat of outrage must be tempered by the fact the force has served the country well. There are empty seats in the House but the force has taken the most appalling stick from people who hate this State and revile the Garda. They never lost an opportunity to dismiss or subvert the force and have on occasions taken the lives of its members.

The force has served the country well and the failings that have recently become apparent beyond contradiction must be corrected and addressed but a new police force will not be established and the Garda will not be swept away as something that can be discarded so that we can start again. We must go on with what is there, the bulk of which is a legacy of commitment, professionalism, courage and decency, which is the material to achieve reform. Leadership and a determination to bring about change is required from the Government, myself and the top gardaí. That, in turn, requires that we are moderate and balanced in our approach, that we are considered in how we go about the process of change and that we do not just lay all about us and dismiss and hack down things of value because it suits the political mood and the timing of the political calendar to posture on these issues as we approach the end of a Dáil session.

I have a heavy responsibility, which I intend to discharge. I intend to push the legislation through because it has taken long enough to get it to where it is now. This legislation has been adapted to meet the criticisms properly advanced about it. It will be the constitutional foundation of a decent police force and I make no apology for doing that. Wiser counsel in future might result in greater improvements and different solutions to a number of the issues with which I am grappling but if the golden thread of accountability of the police force through the Minister to this House, which is a thing of value, is substituted by something else more in accordance with the political demands of the minute, it will be lost.

I have heard people wonder if this will be adequate given that there will be different Ministers for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and considering some of the people who held that position in the past, but that is not a reason for ending political accountability through the Minister to the Dáil. It is a reason for ensuring that the person who holds the position of Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is of the high standard expected of every office holder in the House. The Irish political elite, if we can describe ourselves as such, has done huge things in the past few years to ensure that misbehaviour is a thing of the past in Irish politics.

The Irish public is entitled to look to future generations of politicians to exercise accountability for the Garda Síochána in this House on the basis of the model put forward by our Constitution, which is ministerial accountability to elected representatives in this House and Garda accountability to committees of these Houses and, through the local policing committees, to local authorities. Those are the right steps. I am confident that the measures I have put forward contain the solution to the structural problems that exist and that they will provide the trellis against which different values will grow strongly, to provide us in the future with a decent police force of which we are proud.

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