Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the various reports before us and on Garda accountability, discipline and training more generally. Yesterday evening my colleague Deputy Ó Snodaigh used the short time available to him to focus on accountability failures and lack of discipline within the force. He spoke of the importance of the whistleblowers' charter. The Minister has indicated this is being developed. It is essential that this charter be robust and effective and we hope the Minister and the Garda Commissioner take on board the advice of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties on this. The ICCL's report entitled Implementing Morris: An Agenda for Change contains a range of other important recommendations. I urge the Minister promptly to consider all these and to report his intentions on them to the Oireachtas including the reasons behind, and evidence supporting, any decision not to endorse and implement a recommendation contained in the ICCL report.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh also spoke of the faith so many of us will be placing in the newly established Garda Inspectorate and Garda Ombudsman Commission. I agree with him and caution that they must be adequately resourced if they are to deliver on their potential to renew community confidence in the Garda. According to the Estimates the Ombudsman Commission is to receive less money next year than its equivalent in the Six Counties, yet it is to oversee a significantly larger police force and three times the geographic area and population. This does not add up. If the Minister is committed to accountability and discipline in the police force will he offer a guarantee today that the Ombudsman Commission will open its doors to complainants on 1 January 2007? I call on him to make this commitment.

The Barr report into the killing of Mr. John Carthy at Abbeylara by gardaí highlights a range of grave issues that must be addressed. The report on the siege and the immediate period leading to his death makes it clear that there are urgent training needs in the force including dealing with people with mental health issues and the management of situations involving firearms. At this year's annual general meeting of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors the general secretary declared that Garda training on firearms is far behind international best practice. Gardaí receive more training on how to clean a firearm than on how to manage a firearm situation. My colleague tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister asking how he intended to rectify the grave shortcoming. The Minister replied: "The Garda Commissioner has my full support in the provision of firearms facilities in the Garda Síochána up to international best practice". There is no acknowledgement of the problem identified by the head of one of the larger Garda associations and no detailed plan on how it will be rectified. Any objective analysis of the conduct of gardaí during the "Reclaim the Streets" protest and more recently at Ballinaboy, County Mayo makes clear the need for the development of a human rights complaints model for the policing of protests and for training to complement this. On RTE news, the country witnessed gardaí at Ballinaboy throw a man over a barrier and into a six foot ditch. He suffered grave injury. Other serious Garda assaults on peaceful protesters also took place. I hope we see these gardaí held to account and punished for their actions but, under this Government, I doubt that will happen.

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