Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

In a certain sense it is an indictment of the Government that we are still here discussing this matter. When we raised these issues last year we were laughed out of court with a stream of backbenchers lining up to say how great everything was in the force and how we were somehow undermining if. The people who were in the Visitors Gallery are back again a year on. Nobody in the media wanted to listen to their stories or the horrendous injustices they had experienced. Yet here we are almost a year later and thanks to the persistent and heroic efforts of Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Mr. John Wilson the ideas which were laughed at last year are being accepted by the Government and in some ways nearly promoted as its own. While it is good that the Government will not oppose tonight's Bill - or so we believe - it is meaningless unless it is advanced to Committee Stage and we can begin to get our teeth into it. The principles of an independent police board have now been established. The dogs on the street know that is what we need.

As Deputy Wallace said, putting such a board on top of the existing Garda Síochána will not make a blind bit of difference; much more is needed. We are at a crossroads in terms of policing in this State. We need a Patten-style commission where we look at everything. The days when An Garda Síochána was constituted at the foundation of the State were completely different from the modern Ireland. We do not need a police force, but a police service for the modern era. We need to look at dealing with its goals, objectives, recruitment, promotions, transparency, accountability, etc. While it will take time, the Minister will be judged on whether she is serious about it by how the issue progresses in time because this goes much deeper.

The Morris tribunal report referred to a few very unruly gardaí and there has been much talk about a few bad apples. The reality is that there are many more than a few. They are still the minority, but it is an institutional problem and the measures put in place did not deal with it. The only reason the bad apples got away with it is because their colleagues and those in authority refused to deal with it and covered it up, which allowed it to continue. This did enormous damage to many of our citizens.

It is well known that many of those gardaí, who participated in the appalling crimes associated with what was known as the "heavy gang" in the 1970s and 1980s, ended up being promoted in later years. As Deputy Wallace said, the current treatment of Sergeant Maurice McCabe shows that ethos. It is interesting that when his access to PULSE was restored thanks to the Minister's intervention, the letter he got informing him was at best begrudging. It contained pages reminding him of his responsibility under the Data Protection Act, very like what the former Commissioner, Mr. Callinan, did in order to tell Mr. John Wilson and Sergeant Maurice McCabe to button it at the time that the penalty points issue first came out.

The Minister may think that some of the public statements being made by the acting Garda Commissioner about welcoming a new approach and an open culture are true, but I do not believe them to be true. We have had testimony from serving members of the Garda indicating that behind the public door they are being told to shut it, not to shoot their mouths off and not to participate in this. Last week senior members of the Garda undermined GSOC by saying that GSOC was not a body gardaí should go to under some spurious excuse. Based on information I have used here before, it is our very clear understanding that the former Commissioner, Mr. Callinan, contacted all the Garda representative organisations and asked them to issue public statements undermining GSOC. This is a systemic problem and we need to look beyond just patching it up.

Over the past week I have received two letters from serving and retired gardaí, who have 50 years of service between them. I will read an extract from one of them. This garda sergeant stated:

I have been in the force for over 30 years and I am letting you know that interviews are currently being held for the promotion to the rank of sergeant and inspector and that the competition is in its final stages...

The method of choosing the successful candidate is the same as it's been for years - who you know, play golf with, the chief or the super, or have a super or a chief in the family. I am not saying everybody got promoted in this way, but a large number did. I believe this system has led to where we are today - some fine members have been overlooked year after year and they eventually give up and become disillusioned.

Some of the people being promoted this year will be the future chiefs and commissioners. I think this competition should be brought to a halt until an independent authority is set up to oversee the organisation.

I agree with that. If we are serious we have to look at that and we have to look at recruitment from the bottom as well. We have previously made the point that it is hard to see how anybody currently at the rank of assistant commissioner or higher could possibly be part of the leadership of a new force because much of the information on the problems that have emerged were not just given to the former Commissioner and former Minister; many among the senior ranks of the Garda were well aware of them also.

I wish to mention a few cases. The first one relates to Mr. Ian Bailey, which is central to many of the allegations around the tapes and so on. There was a horrendous fitting up of a citizen and his partner. Yet we know, because we mentioned it here last year, that in 2001 a report done by the former DPP stated that the behaviour of the gardaí was outrageous. Mr. Bailey's team has reckoned that it has cost the State €40 million to €50 million in trying to fit him up in the intervening 18 years since this started. It is not just a financial cost, it is a human cost to him and his partner. It is also a human cost to the family of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

There is also the fact that there is a murderer at large. However, the State continues to defend the case being taken by Ian Bailey.

In the course of Mr. Bailey's litigation and prior to a Supreme Court hearing on his appeal against a High Court decision to extradite him it emerged that the French authorities were acting on the basis of a flawed European arrest warrant prepared on foot of information supplied by gardaí who had been named in the Director of Public Prosecution's report as having behaved improperly. One could not literally make this stuff up. We highlighted this matter in the Dáil last year and no one even batted an eyelid. In short, it did not cause waves. Subsequently, other information emerged and media outlets recently reported that three former senior officers, in the context of the case to which I refer, had used improper influence on a former Director of Public Prosecutions via Malachy Boohig, State solicitor for west Cork, in order to bring about the prosecution of Ian Bailey. Mr. Bailey's legal team has been informed that these officers are former Chief Superintendent Dermot Dwyer of Bandon, the State's most senior detective at the time, former Chief Superintendent Seán Camon and the former assistant commissioner for the south-west division Martin McQuinn. Evidence given by the former Director of Public Prosecutions Mr. Eamonn Barnes indicates that pressure was exerted in order to force a prosecution in the Bailey case. In addition, Mr. Boohig has stated he was informed by a garda that he was aware that he had attended college with the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform John O'Donoghue and that he was directed to talk to him in order to have a prosecution pursued.

This is an extremely serious issue. What makes matters worse for me is that the names I have just mentioned are not new. Former Chief Superintendent Dermot Dwyer's name also popped up in a dossier produced by former garda Jack Doyle who was the subject of a television programme in 2001 and revealed that gardaí were involved in selling drugs and allowing criminals to get their hands on some of them. The dossier to which I refer which was presented to Mr. Michael McDowell contains allegations to the effect that the individual in question who has also been named in the Ian Bailey case was given tens of thousands of pounds by a major criminal gang. A root and branch review is required.

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