Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The deliberate shooting of a garda has caused widespread concern. The casual recklessness of last week's murderous attempt on the life of a member of the Garda Síochána is an assault on the democratic institutions of society. The murderous recklessness that led to the deaths of innocent civilians Donna Cleary and Anthony Campbell has caused alarm to many citizens. It is a measure of the worsening climate of unlawfulness and wanton violence that these things have come to this pass.

Thinking people are properly outraged when the impression is given in some quarters that so long as gangland figures are only killing each other, there is no acute cause for concern. Some people on this side of the House who warned of complacency leading to the shooting of an innocent civilian were ignored, but so it transpired. Few of us foresaw such a descent into violence that an unarmed member of the Garda Síochána would be the victim of a casual daylight shooting. Thankfully, Garda Paul Sherlock has survived, but the incident means the Government can no longer claim that concern about crime is exaggerated.

The Government is not alone in falling back on that argument. While most commentators who make similar claims are well intentioned, they are generally convinced that all crime is the product of disadvantage and inequality. All of the evidence indicates a definite connection between poverty and disadvantage and resort to criminal activity, but it is also apparent that the most serious criminal behaviour in today's society has little to do with social conditions and is concerned with the enormous profits to be made from criminal endeavour, in particular the trafficking of drugs.

It should go without saying that it is the duty of Government to address the causes of crime, but this does not remove the imperative to protect our citizens on the streets and in their homes. People living in the poorest areas of urban Ireland suffer most from the breakdown of law and order. The people besieged in their own homes by young thugs are the old and the vulnerable. People who are afraid to venture outside their homes or who are afraid to walk the streets at night should not be required to wait until the Government has sufficiently improved social conditions before they experience some improvement in their quality of life.

Life as it is lived in some of our most difficult estates is an unknown for many well-intentioned people who write about crime. People are deliberately targeted for persecution because they are vulnerable. Their property is damaged and they are deprived of the enjoyment of their homes. Often, they cannot get a garda when needed, nor can a garda be stationed at every corner. The areas worst afflicted are often the areas least policed. Society must accept that those who choose to disobey the laws of the land — their crimes, the pain they inflict and the damage they wreak on their own environment — threaten the rights and security of every citizen.

I was interested to read yesterday that the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, returned to his theme that violence in society may only be overcome by "the mobilisation of communities". He is correct that it is in places where society does not function adequately that anti-social behaviour finds its breeding ground. However, until such communities are rebuilt, the practical and unnerving reality is that people who would seek to lead the mobilisation would be putting themselves, their families and their property at risk. I do not disagree with the Archbishop that law alone will not set standards of behaviour, but it is not immediately clear to me how vulnerable, broken, disadvantaged and imperfect communities can rise up against those dictating criminal activity without considerable support from the State.

Part of State support for these damaged communities must be improved community policing, namely, gardaí taken from behind their desks to police communities they know and people they should get to know. I welcome the Minister's reference to the recruitment of additional civilian staff, but the civilianisation programme of the Garda has been a complete failure. During the last Dáil, a report prepared by experts for a trade union showed that not a single garda was taken from behind a desk and put into the community. Civilianisation has become the recruitment of additional civilians as distinct from putting gardaí tied up in pen-pushing duties into the community.

Given the great need for genuine partnership with the community, we must ask why there is such official resistance to proper community policing. The evidence is that where genuine community policing has been tried with the endorsement and support of senior gardaí, it has been a very considerable success. Despite the evidence, the official culture regards community policing as an add-on and concession to community and public pressure. Privately, the official view is that community policing is a soft, liberal, outdated and unworkable concept. Of course, those who comprise the official view have never lived in damaged communities themselves. The truth is that they do not know what daily life is like in communities that are terrorised by crime.

The problem is not just the corrosive impact of gangland feuds but the everyday experience of petty vandalism, intimidating youths and destruction of the local environment. In certain communities, old people must stay indoors, women are fearful walking the streets after dark and people who live alone or are different or vulnerable fear being targeted by youths who are out of control. In its most extreme manifestation, anti-social behaviour can lead to serious injury and, as in the tragic case I saw first hand in Clonmel last spring, even death.

Ronnie Flanagan once said that policing was too big to be left to the police themselves. Reforms were extracted in the last Dáil from a reluctant Government. The former justice Minister, Michael McDowell, may have been better disposed to reform than the establishment in the Department. The reforms won were less than perfect, however, and it is too early to say what impact they will have. I approached the former Minister with the idea that we should establish at local authority level local policing committees before which senior gardaí would be publicly examined in council chambers on policing effectiveness by a small number of public representatives who would develop some expertise in the area. The then Minister became persuaded of the idea, was generous enough to say in public where it came from and gave effect to it in his own way. The committees are not yet operational and will, when implemented, prove to require some adjustment.

The major reform of which we did not persuade the Minister was the need to provide for civilian oversight of policing in the shape of a Garda authority. It was interesting to hear Denis Bradley's views in evidence to the joint committee on the reform proposals. He said:

Having looked at the Bill and had discussions with the Minister, I have two difficulties. One is that there is no police authority between the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the appointment of the Commissioner and senior Garda officers. The Conroy report of 1968 pointed out that this was not good for policing. Our experience in Northern Ireland is that having a political but also independent group of people acting rationally together as regards those senior appointments creates a distance between government and the police and this is something the police become extremely comfortable with after a period.

I was interested to note that in one of his first actions on becoming Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan availed of a platform in July at the McGill summer school to rebut the notion of a Garda authority as advanced by the Labour Party. In an outburst of populism, the Minister said he was very concerned about the extent to which Government was hiving off responsibilities to agencies of State thereby allowing it to "abdicate responsibility". It is a view with which many of us would agree. The Minister was very slow, however, to advance the examples he had in mind. The significant problem with the new quangos lies in the absence of accountability to the House through the Minister. While the Minister received good publicity from his remarks, it is not clear what meaning they had. Did he mean the Courts Service should be abolished and that the courts should once again be run as a branch of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform? Does the Minister think that plans in train to establish an independent Prison Service should not go ahead? There did not seem to be anyone present at the summer school with the knowledge to ask the Minister these questions.

The last Minister was given to provoking the public and Garda. When frustrated that he could not catch criminals, he expressed the intention to get his hands on the Opposition. We now have a Minister who has a far more soothing approach and will go forward on the basis that he feels our pain and will pour treacle on all these issues. The fact remains that the Garda Síochána is maintained within the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform precisely to ensure that there is no public responsibility for its current operations or future. An independent Garda authority, representative of civil society, is needed to introduce an efficient, transparent regime of openness and accountability which is completely lacking currently. Direct responsibility to the Minister of the day is the single greatest roadblock to a reform package for the Garda.

The Minister said in Donegal: "I cannot be left as the Minister for Justice in a position where I have to beg the chairman of an authority to urge the Garda to take a particular course of action". How many times have his predecessors responded — and how often does he expect in future to respond — to particular crises by claiming the Garda has operational independence and is not subject to ministerial direction or control? How many parliamentary questions will the Minister refuse to answer on the basis that he has no official responsibility for the operations of the Garda Síochána? Responsibility to the Minister of the day is claimed as an essential democratic bulwark by Ministers only when they argue against establishing a new police authority with a clear mandate for oversight and change. Such responsibility, however, is absolutely denied by precisely the same Ministers when public representatives seek answers on issues of profound public importance.

It is clear that a radical reorientation of the Garda will not be delivered by the force itself or by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform whether acting in concert or isolation. I am convinced that transparent, accountable policing in partnership with local communities must be matched at national level with meaningful and appropriate civilian oversight of the Garda. An independent Garda authority would drive the agenda for reform and ensure measures were implemented rather than put on the long finger. An independent authority would have a clear remit and inject professionalism and modernism into a force which has served the country well but requires nevertheless to be updated. These goals can only be achieved by speeding up the pace of reform within the Garda which must become a modern, effective police service with a commitment to community policing, modern management and proper systems of accountability. The representative bodies within the Garda are beginning to recognise the need for change and have given a guarded welcome to the call for an independent authority. The Minister and his officials are now alone in resisting the demand for change.

I have avoided in my remarks resorting to statistics to support my arguments because real people in real communities are not concerned about statistics. They are concerned about the breakdown of law and order, the coarsening of Irish society, living in a country where thugs in broad daylight can casually use a shotgun on an unarmed garda, that innocent citizens can be the accidental victims of gangland feuding, that so many of our young people are being poisoned by drugs and at the destruction of the local environment. In any event, people do not believe the statistics. The scale of non-reporting of petty crime is growing every week because the victims cannot see the point of reporting incidents to the Garda. In brief, while statistics are falling, fear of crime is rising.

There is, however, one statistic which cannot be ignored. The casual taking of human life has become commonplace. The past two years were the worst in the history of the State for gun murders, as the Minister admitted in today's Irish Examiner. A total of 27 gun murders were committed last year and 21 in the previous year. The reason we cannot ignore these statistics is because the evidence shows the new breed of vicious criminal responsible for these gun murders believe they can escape detection. The former Minister provided figures which revealed convictions were obtained in 16% of the recorded gun murders over the past ten years. For example, of the 21 gun murders in 2005, only four were regarded as having been detected. The new breed of vicious criminal concludes from these statistics that if he or she kills or orders the killing of others, there is little chance of facing prosecution and even less chance of being convicted.

The Garda must be resourced and organised in a fashion that puts this generation of criminal gangs out of business. The new Minister must introduce legislation to put the witness protection programme on a statutory footing. A statutorily-based witness protection programme must be an essential element of the Garda response to the changing nature of crime, organised crime, gang warfare and drug trafficking. We must also have regard to the views of the Supreme Court and Special Criminal Court in that regard.

I accept that fighting crime is a complex process with no single answer but a firm determination is needed to deal with the problem effectively and with toughness. We will get the opportunity on another day to discuss the causes of crime but regardless of our analysis of causes, in which regard a look at the addresses of those in Mountjoy would be telling, it cannot deflect society from a determination to ensure crime is properly punished. We must stand with the individuals and families who have been victims of crime by supporting their entitlement to personal safety and safe communities. Ten years after the humbug of zero tolerance was exposed as a gimmick, our law-abiding citizens are not guaranteed such a basic entitlement.

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