Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the acknowledgement by Deputy O'Keeffe that his party has solidly and fully supported the establishment of a Garda reserve and that it promised it to the electorate on a number of occasions. I note he has not, in any way, resiled from that.

On the question of consultation, as the Deputy well knows, the Bill was crafted on the supposition that the initiative and proposals for a reserve would come from the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána and that it would not be a question of the Minister deciding on a reserve and starting to consult the Garda associations. That is written into law. The strange thing is that I began to detect opposition to the process of internal consultation in which the Commissioner engaged before he made any proposals to me about the nature and functions of a reserve. I read in the newspapers about two days' training etc. at a time when I had received nothing from the Garda Síochána on the same subject. From the moment I received the Commissioner's proposals, I indicated that I would maintain an open door policy with the Garda Síochána. I pre-empted no one in this respect. I re-emphasise to the Deputy that I will talk to anybody at any time on this subject.

The second issue the Deputy raised was that when the heads of the original Garda Síochána Bill were published, I had a meeting with members of the GRA and AGSI and they had considerable problems with a number of the provisions in the Bill. For instance, at that time they indicated they would advise their members not to have anything to do with the Garda Ombudsman Commission's inquiries and that they envisaged members of the Garda Síochána would not conduct inquiries at the behest of that commission.

They had other very strong objections to, for instance, the obligation to fully account for the manner in which they carried out their duties. They expressed very strong constitutional reasons why they thought what was being proposed in the heads of the Bill was incorrect. In the course of that conversation I said to them that I did not envisage introducing the Garda reserve in the course of the lifetime of this Government. The reason I did so was because on the publication of the Garda Bill there was no indication at that time of the Government's agreement to expand the force to 14,000 because of the embargo that was in place. I had made a solemn commitment in public that I would never use the reserve as a substitute for proper recruitment and staffing for An Garda Síochána. I said that to them at the time and they know that. If they have a careful minute of what was said, I told them that was the reason, that I was not in a position at that time to deliver the extra strength to An Garda Síochána because of the freeze on Government recruitment and, therefore, at that stage I did not envisage being in a position during the lifetime of the Government to bring forward the proposals for a reserve.

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