Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The Bill says that the volunteer police member has the same powers in communities as an ordinary garda. Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's amendment says that the Garda Síochána support resource members shall only have such limited powers and privileges as prescribed by the Minister. However, the Minister proposes to hand over the entitlement, not just out of the House but out of his own hands, to the Commissioner to determine the powers of such gardaí. There is something seriously wrong with that. Powers include those of arrest, detention and questioning. Will they have the powers to exercise and execute search warrants? What happens in those circumstances? Will the Garda Commissioner be able to determine whether a reserve police force member can arrest a citizen? Will the Minister or this House determine that? This is too serious a matter to leave as it stands in the Minister's amendment.

Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's amendment No. 66, with which I agree, makes provision for limited powers for the reserve force, but those powers would be prescribed by the Minister and he or she would have the authority to determine them. That makes a great deal of sense because we can then question the Minister. However, the matter may now be left entirely to the authority of the Garda Commissioner, with the issue unclear if he or she can, when calling in the reserve police force, allow it powers of arrest on one occasion and deny them on another.

A number of people, including myself, asked about the question of payment. In Britain, the reserve police force is very much a paid force. Does the Minister envisage a voluntary unpaid force or a part-paid force? How does he envisage a voluntary member carrying out duties if he or she must appear in court, for example? How would a volunteer get time off from work? Has the Minister a particular set of duties in mind to which the reserve force members would be directed?

Part of the problem with this debate is that none of us knows what the Minister has in mind, how the force will operate or what its duties or even its powers will be. I cannot attend a residents' meeting and say that the Minister has an idea of which I am in favour, in principle. I cannot ask the residents what they might think and cannot explain the matter to them because the Minister has not explained it to us.

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